Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (/bʊlˈɡɑːkəf/;[3] Russian: Михаи́л Афана́сьевич Булга́ков, pronounced*[mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf],*; 15 May*[O.S. 3 May]*1891 – 10 March 1940) was a Russian writer, physician and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century.[1] He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, published posthumously, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.[4]

Life and work

Early life
Mikhail Bulgakov was born on 15 May*[O.S. 3 May]*1891 in Kiev, Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire. He was one of seven children (the oldest of three brothers) of Afanasiy Ivanovich Bulgakov (ru) — a state councilor, an assistant 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. Both of his grandfathers were clergymen in the Russian Orthodox Church.[5] Afanasiy Bulgakov was born in Bryansk Oblast, Russia, where his father was a priest, and he moved to Kiev to study in the academy.[6] Varvara Bulgakova was born in Karachev, Russia.[7] From childhood Bulgakov was drawn to theater. At home, he wrote comedies, which his brothers and sisters acted out.[8]

In 1901 Bulgakov joined the First Kiev Gymnasium, 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. After the death of his father in 1907, Mikhail's mother, a well-educated and extraordinarily diligent person, assumed responsibility for his education. After graduation from the Gymnasium in 1909,[9] Bulgakov entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University, which he finished with special commendation. He then took a position as a physician at the Kiev Military Hospital.[10]

In 1913, Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa. At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered with the Red Cross as a medical doctor and was sent directly to the front, where he was badly injured at least twice. Bulgakov's suffering from these wounds had deleterious long-term effects. To suppress chronic pain, especially in the abdomen, he injected himself with morphine. Over the next year his addiction grew stronger. In 1918, he abandoned morphine and never used it again. Morphine, a book released in 1926, is his account of that trying period.

In 1916, Bulgakov graduated from the Medical Department of Kiev University and after serving as a surgeon at Chernovtsy hospital, was appointed provincial physician to Smolensk province. His life in those days is reflected in his A Country Doctor's Notebook.[10] In September 1917 Bulgakov was moved to the hospital in Vyazma, near Smolensk. In February 1918, he returned to Kiev, Ukraine, where he opened a private practice at his home at Andreyevsky Descent, 13. Here he lived through the Russian 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 February 1919 he was mobilised as an army physician by the Ukrainian People's Army and assigned to the Northern Caucasus. There, he became seriously ill with typhus and barely survived.[10][11] In the Caucasus he started working as a journalist, but when he and others were invited to return as doctors by the French and German governments, Bulgakov was refused permission to leave Russia because of the typhus. That was when he last saw his family; after the Civil War and the rise of the Soviets most of his relatives emigrated to Paris