Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov 1891 1940

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Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov(1891 1940)

• Biography
• Born in Kiev on May 3d, 1891 to Afanasy Ivanovich
  Bulgakov and Varvara Mikhailovna Pokrovskaya
• the writers father, 1907

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• Father is a son of a priest, and is studying for
  his doctorate at Kiev Theological Seminary at
  that time, where he would eventually become a
  professor specializing in the history of
  religion he also works as a censor in Kiev
  Censorship Section, in charge of material printed
  in French, German, and English

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Mother is a teacher, whose father was a bishop,
and her two brothers are doctors

• the writers mother in 1907, after her husbands
  death

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• Father dies of sclerosis of the kidneys at age 48
  (when Mikhail is 16). His wife is left to care
  for 7 children, Mikhail being the oldest
• Bulgakov enters Kiev University in 1909, at age
  18. He specializes in medicine

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• Bulgakov as a high school boy, 1909

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• Bulgakov as a student

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• Bulgakov during his university years

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• At the age of 22, he marries Tatyana Nikolaevna
  Lappa, the niece of one of his mothers friends
• In 1916, Bulgakov receives his degree. During
  1916-1919, he works as an army doctor with his
  wife as a nurse in different areas of Russia and
  Ukraine

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• Bulgakov working at the hospital in Saratov in
  the summer of 1914

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• He witnesses a number of horrors, tries to desert
  the army several times and gets mobilized again
• During 1919-1920, he gets his first professional
  experience as a journalist and a playwright,
  writing, giving lectures, and seeing his first
  plays produced. He gives up his medical career
  and decides to make a living as a writer
• During 1921-1923, Bulgakov writes feuilletons and
  stories for the Moscow and Leningrad newspapers
  and magazines

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• In 1922, his first serious literary effort Part
  One of Notes on the Cuff is published in the
  newspaper Nakanune. It is heavily
  autobiographical its style and structure mimic
  the lack of stability in Civil War Russia
• A year later, Part Two of Notes on the Cuff is
  published in the magazine Rossia. The novel
  White Guard was apparently begun around this
  time. It is a historical novel about the Civil
  War, abounding in realistic descriptions of real
  people and real places. The novel was deemed
  provocative because it was sympathetic in its
  depiction of its White heroes

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Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, Bulgakovs second
wife

• In 1921, the story collection Diaboliad, which
  is mainly dark satire, and part one of the novel
  White Guard were published. This same year,
  Bulgakov marries Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya

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• In 1925, the Moscow Art Theater suggests that
  Bulgakov make a play out of White Guard, a
  project he had already begun on his own.
  Diaboliad, a collection of his stories, which
  includes The Fatal Eggs, is published. His
  novella Heart of a Dog is written but rejected by
  the censors. Although being an entertaining
  work, it is also a political allegory, imploying
  an idea of unnatural operation on a man and a dog
  as an obvious metaphor for the Bolshevik
  Revolution

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the Art Theater building
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• In 1926, two minor collections of feuilletons are
  published Stories and A Treatise on Housing.
  Due to attention attracted by attempts to get his
  novella Heart of a Dog published, representatives
  of secret police search his apartment,
  confiscating both the manuscript of the novella
  and his diaries, and interrogate him. His plays,
  Days of the Turbins and Zoyas Apartment,
  premiere they are immediately successful and
  controversial

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Bulgakov in 1926, at the time of the premiere of
Days of the Turbins
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• Days of the Turbins brought a lot of fame to
  Bulgakov and revitalized the Moscow Art Theater.
  When it was premiered, the play caused a
  political and social sensation, due to its
  special meaning to post-Civil War and
  post-Revolutionary society in which the conquered
  have no voice and the victors are not quite at
  ease
• During 1925-1927, stories which belong to the
  cycle Notes of a Young Doctor are published in
  The Medical Worker. This is Bulgakovs last
  appearance in print during his lifetime

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The most famous picture of Bulgakov taken at the
time of the premiere, 1926
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• During 1927, attacks on Bulgakov intensify play
  Days of the Turbins is banned
• In 1928, he begins the work which will become The
  Master and Margarita his play Flight is banned
  before its premiere. Play Crimson Island
  premieres

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Bulgakovs study in his apartment
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• In 1929, his plays Days of the Turbins, Zoyas
  Apartment, and Crimson Island are banned. After
  continuing attacks, Bulgakov writes to the
  Secretary of the Central Committee of USSR,
  Enukidze, asking that he and his wife be allowed
  to leave the country. The full text of White
  Guard is published in Paris
• In 1930, in despair at his general situation, and
  the banning of his new play The Cabal of
  Hypocrites, for which he had high hopes, Bulgakov
  burns his manuscripts. He writes a letter to
  Stalin, in which he points out that he is
  obviously useless to his country as a writer and
  asks that he be allowed to leave. Stalin
  provides him with a minor theater job at TRAM
  (Theater of the Working Youth. Later, he is
  given work at the Art Theater as an assistant
  director on the production of Dead Souls

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• in 1931, the play Adam and Eve is written, a work
  which has never been published in Soviet Union.
  Bulgakov again addresses the government asking
  for permission to travel abroad, and receives no
  answer
• In 1932, after a routine request by the theater,
  Days of the Turbins is allowed on stage again, a
  development which mystifies all concerned. New
  play Days is premiered. Bulgakov marries Elena
  Sergeevna Shilovskaya. Premiere of Dead Souls at
  the Art Theater takes place in Bulgakovs
  adaptation

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Bulgakov and Elena Sergeevna. His third marriage
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Bulgakov in 1932
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• In 1933, Bulgakov turns in his Life of Monsieur
  de Moliere, a short biography for a series edited
  by A. Tikhonov, who soon rejects the manuscript.
  Later in a year, Bulgakov secretely does
  extensive work on the new draft of The Master and
  Margarita
• In 1934, he writes the play Bliss which will not
  be produced in his lifetime. Later, he writes
  again to the government requesting permission to
  travel. Finishes the scenario of The Inspector
  General
• In 1935, he rewrites Zoyas Apartment for the
  Paris production

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• In 1936, after a warfare in the theater, the play
  The Cabal of Hypocrites finally premieres. It is
  a great success with the public despite the flaws
  of interpretation imposed by Stanislavsky, but
  official criticism is swift and damaging. The
  most important attack on this play is published
  in Pravda under the title External Glitter and
  False Content. The play is immediately taken
  out of the repertory. This event is a final blow
  to the already strained relations between
  Stanislavsky and Bulgakov. Bulgakov officially
  resigns from the Art Theater. Toward the end of
  the year, he begins Theatrical Novel which is a
  satire on his adventures in the Art Theater from
  his first play to his last

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• In 1937, Bulgakov works with V. Veresaev on the
  play Pushkin, a collaboration which ends in a
  quarrel ultimately, Veresaev takes his name off
  the manuscript. The first version of the play
  Ivan Vasilievich is finished
• In 1938, Bulgakov continues his intensive work on
  The Master and Margarita. The adaptation of Don
  Quixote is finished

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• In 1939, the epilogue to Master and Margarita is
  written. The play Batum, about the young Stalin
  (written at the Art Theaters instigation for
  Stalins jubilee) is finished. Permission has
  been granted to Bulgakov to travel. He and his
  wife go to Leningrad. There he becomes sick and
  it is discovered that he has hypertonic
  nephrosclerosis, the disease which killed his
  father at almost the same age. Bulgakov returns
  to Moscow seriously ill and anxious to finish his
  novel

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Bulgakov during the last days
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• In 1940, the last work is done on the final proof
  and correction of Master and Margarita. In March
  of that year, Bulgakov dies
• To most people today, Bulgakov is best known as
  the author of Master and Margarita in his own
  lifetime, he was known mainly as a playwright.
  He is a hero to Russians, but in the Soviet Union
  both his life and his works are still presented
  selectively.

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por

• Major Works
• Notes on the Cuff autobiographical prose White
  Guard novel
• Heart of a Dog - novella
• The Master and Margarita -novel
• Stories
• Diaboliad collection of stories
• Notes of a Young Doctor
• Stories and A Treatise on Housing - feuilletons

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• Plays
• Days of the Turbins
• Zoyas Apartment
• Flight
• The Crimson Island
• The Cabal of Hypocrites
• Adam and Eve
• Life of Monsieur de Moliere
• Bliss
• The Inspector General
• PushkinIvan Vasilievich
• Batum

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Major Themes

• Bulgakov is a unique phenomenon and a
  characteristic victim of life under 20th century
  totalitarianism
• Regarded as a mystical writer
• Spiritual barrenness was characteristic of
  Russian radical thought at the beginning of the
  20th century

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• Lived at a time when Soviet Union was
  single-mindedly engaged in constructing a new
  socialist society everything was directed to
  speeding the nations progress toward communist
  future
• Was regarded as a writer out of his time, as an
  alien in Moscow literary world, which was
  dominated by Socialist-Realist tradition