Mikhail Bulgakov

Early life , where the Bulgakov family resided during the writer's childhood and youth, now Mikhail Bulgakov Museum Mikhail Bulgakov was born on in Kiev, Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, at 28 Vozdvishenskaya Street, into a Russian family, and baptized on . He was the oldest of the seven children of a state councilor, a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, as well as a prominent Russian Orthodox essayist, thinker and translator of religious texts. His mother was Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakova (nee Pokrovskaya), a former teacher at a women's gymnasium. The academician Nikolai Petrov was his godfather, while his godmother was his paternal grandmother, Olympiada. Afanasiy Bulgakov (1859 - 1907) was born in Oryol, Oryol Governorate, the oldest son of Ivan Avraamovich Bulgakov, a priest, and his wife Olympiada Ferapontovna. He first studied in a seminary in Oryol, and then studied in Kiev Theological Academy from 1881 to 1885, and was named a docent of the academy in 1886. Varvara Bulgakova (1869 - 1922) was born in Karachev; her father, Mikhail Pokrovsky, was a protoiereus. Afanasiy and Varvara married in 1890. Their other children were Vera (b. 1892), Nadezhda (b. 1893), Varvara (b. 1895), Nikolai (b. 1898), Ivan (b. 1900), and Yelena (b. 1902). All the children received a good education; they read the classics of Russian and European literature, studied music, and went to concerts. Mikhail played piano, sang baritone, and enjoyed opera. In particular, he enjoyed Faust by Gounod; according to his sister Nadezhda, he attended showings of Faust at least 40 times. At home, Mikhail and his siblings acted out plays that they enjoyed; the family also had a dacha in Bucha. In 1900, Bulgakov was enrolled in the ; in 1901, Bulgakov was enrolled in the , where he developed an interest in Russian and European literature (his favourite authors at the time being Gogol, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Dickens), theatre and opera. The teachers of the Gymnasium exerted a great influence on the formation of his literary taste. In 1906, Afanasiy Bulgakov fell ill with malignant nephrosclerosis; he died of the illness in 1907. The loss of his father caused Mikhail to turn away from the Orthodox faith. His sister Nadezhda observed that he showed a great interest in the theories of Darwin, and had turned to "non-belief". In the summer of 1908, Bulgakov met Tatyana Lappa. Lappa, who lived in Saratov, had arrived in Kiev to visit her relatives; her aunt was a friend of Varvara Bulgakova and thus introduced her to the young Bulgakov. In 1909, Bulgakov began to study medicine at the Kiev University. In 1912, Lappa arrived in Kiev to study. The two married in April 1913. Bulgakov was staying with Lappa's parents in Saratov at the outbreak of the First World War. Her mother opened a field hospital for wounded soldiers, where Bulgakov worked as a doctor. The couple returned to Kiev in the autumn. In 1916, Bulgakov graduated from the university, after which he volunteered for the Red Cross. His wife volunteered as a nurse. He first worked in Kamianets-Podilskyi, then he was transferred to Chernivtsi in the same year. In September of that year he was transferred to Moscow; and then to the village of Nikolskoye in the Smolensk Oblast. The time he spent working as a doctor would be the inspiration for his short story cycle, ''A Young Doctor's Notebook and his short story, Morphine. Morphine'' is based on the author's actual addiction to morphine, which he started taking to alleviate the allergic effects of an anti-diphtheria drug, after accidentally infecting himself with the disease while treating a child with the same condition. While visiting Kiev with his wife, they received advice from Bulgakov's stepfather on countering his addiction in the form of injecting distilled water instead of morphine, which gradually helped Bulgakov to end his addiction. In the autumn of 1917 he was transferred to the town of Vyazma, but left for Moscow in either November or December of that year in an unsuccessful attempt to gain a military discharge. After briefly visiting Lappa's parents in Saratov, they returned to Kiev in February 1918. Upon returning Bulgakov opened a private practice at his home at Andreyevsky Descent, 13. Here he lived through the Civil War and witnessed ten coups. Successive governments drafted the young doctor into their service while two of his brothers were serving in the White Army against the Bolsheviks. In 1919, he was mobilised as an army physician by the White Army. In September 1919, Bulgakov was in Grozny with his wife. While there, he observed the fighting between the forces of Anton Denikin and Uzun-Hajji in the city of Chechen-Aul; this became part of one of his earliest works, "Unusual Adventures" (). There, he became seriously ill with typhus, and was bedridden for several weeks. was banned before rehearsals, Bulgakov requested permission to leave the country but was refused. In poor health, Bulgakov devoted his last years to what he called his "sunset" novel. The years 1937 to 1939 were stressful for Bulgakov, veering from glimpses of optimism, believing the publication of his masterpiece could still be possible, to bouts of depression, when he felt as if there were no hope. On 15 June 1938, when the manuscript was nearly finished, Bulgakov wrote in a letter to his wife: "In front of me 327 pages of the manuscript (about 22 chapters). The most important remains – editing, and it's going to be hard, I will have to pay close attention to details. Maybe even re-write some things... 'What's its future?' you ask? I don't know. Possibly, you will store the manuscript in one of the drawers, next to my 'killed' plays, and occasionally it will be in your thoughts. Then again, you don't know the future. My own judgement of the book is already made and I think it truly deserves being hidden away in the darkness of some chest..." In 1939, Bulgakov organized a private reading of The Master and Margarita to his close circle of friends. Elena Bulgakova remembered 30 years later, "When he finally finished reading that night, he said: 'Well, tomorrow I am taking the novel to the publisher!' and everyone was silent", "...Everyone sat paralyzed. Everything scared them. P. (P. A. Markov, in charge of the literature division of MAT) later at the door fearfully tried to explain to me that trying to publish the novel would cause terrible things", she wrote in her diary (14 May 1939). In the last month of his life, friends and relatives were constantly on duty at his bedside. On 10 March 1940, Bulgakov died from nephrotic syndrome (an inherited kidney disorder). His father had died of the same disease, and from his youth Bulgakov had guessed his future mortal diagnosis. On 11 March, a civil funeral was held in the building of the Union of Soviet Writers. Before the funeral, the Moscow sculptor Sergey Merkurov cast a death mask of his face. He was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. ==Works==