Bulgakov's works list by year. The best works of Bulgakov: list and brief overview

Michael Bulgakov. 1920s Museum of M. A. Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov arrived in Moscow in the fall of 1921 and already in next year began to publish in thin Moscow magazines - “Rupor”, “Red Magazine for Everyone”, “Smekhach” and others; got a job as a feuilletonist at the newspaper Gudok and became a regular contributor to the Berlin newspaper Nakanune. Bulgakov's first Moscow years were marked by the appearance of a large number of essays, notes, reporters' reports, feuilletons, stories and novellas. Until the mid-1920s, Mikhail Bulgakov was known as a metropolitan writer, and only in the second half of the 1920s, after the huge success of the play “Days of the Turbins,” did he gain fame as a playwright and practically abandoned prose. We have selected five stories by Bulgakov from the 1920s, written in different genres and languages. different topics. All together they give an idea of ​​Bulgakov the writer of that time - about where he started and how he worked with his recent past and the new Soviet reality.

"Moonshine Lake" (1923)

"Moonshine Lake" - business card Bulgakov's first Moscow years. Having moved to the capital, he quickly gained fame as a keen observer and witty chronicler of Moscow life in the first half of the 1920s. Chief Editor In a literary supplement to the Berlin newspaper “Nakanune,” Alexey Tolstoy asked Moscow employees: “Send more Bulgakov!” “Moonshine Lake” is the most characteristic and funniest of this series of stories and essays.

The main character of the story, occupying a room in communal apartment No. 50, in the evening, when silence reigned in the “cursed apartment,” he intended to quietly read a book, but the reading was interrupted by the crow of a rooster. As it turned out, the rooster was plucked alive by an absolutely drunk unknown citizen, the housekeeper of Vasily Ivanovich’s quarters. The main character saved the rooster, and for a while the apartment became quiet again, but then at night the apartment owner himself broke all the windows and beat his wife. The drunken chairman of the board was summoned because of the noise, and at three o’clock in the morning Ivan Sidorych, the second person on the board after the chairman, came to the hero, “swaying like a blade of grass in the wind.” In the morning, other drunk neighbors came, as well as a junior janitor (“lightly drunk”), a senior (“dead drunk”) and a stoker (“in a terrible state”). During the day, the police closed the moonshine outlet, but in the evening a “fresh spring began to flow” in the neighborhood, and general drunkenness continued on an equally large scale. The desperate hero and his wife closed the room and went to their sister for three days.

Mikhail Bulgakov seems to describe his life almost literally in communal apartment No. 50 at 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, where he lived with his wife Tatyana Lappa since the fall of 1921. Another 16 people lived with them in the communal apartment, most which were made up of workers from a neighboring printing house. Many of Bulgakov’s communal neighbors are easily recognizable as the heroes of Moonshine Lake. So, Annushka is Anna Fedorovna Goryacheva, who will be the prototype of the famous Anushka the plague from The Master and Margarita, and the apartment owner of apartment No. 50 Vasily Ivanovich is Vasily Ivanovich Boltyrev, a 35-year-old painter at the 2nd Moscow factory Goznak, who repeatedly threatened Bulgakov with eviction and fairly frayed his nerves.

Bulgakov’s wife later recalled the everyday life of moonshine in the apartment: “They’ll buy moonshine, get drunk, they’ll definitely start fighting, the women will shout: “Save me, help me!” Bulgakov, of course, jumps out and runs to call the police. And the police come - they lock their doors and sit quietly. They even wanted to fine him.” And Bulgakov himself constantly complained about the noisy apartment, dreaming of moving out as soon as possible. In Bulgakov’s diary there is an entry dated October 29, 1923: “I positively don’t know what to do with the bastard that inhabits this apartment.” Bulgakov managed to leave apartment No. 50 only in the fall of 1924, and his first separate apartment with his own office appeared only three years later.

"Chinese Story" (1923)

"Chinese History" is perhaps the least famous story Bulgakov - and at the same time one of his best. It stands out for its atypicality: in the story there is no communal life, well known to the writer, no shops and restaurants of the noisy NEP era, no autobiographical basis- but there is a Civil War.

Accidentally caught in Soviet Russia Chinese man walking Walking- nickname the Chinese who sold from stalls (see, for example, in Osip Mandelstam’s “Egyptian Mark”: “At night I dreamed of a Chinese man hung with handbags like a necklace of hazel grouse”), and then all Chinese began to be called that. Saint-Zin-Po yearns for warm China in cold, alien Moscow. In an opium parlour, he lost his last money and a sheepskin coat. Later, “in some gigantic hall with semicircular vaults,” the Chinese gets to the Red Army and is signed up as a volunteer: it turns out that Sen-Zin-Po is an excellent shooter and in his “agate slanting eyes from birth there was a wonderful sighting panorama.” In the very first battle (“brilliant debut”) Sen-Zin-Po dies, without fully realizing what was happening.

Story about tragic death Chinese on fire Civil War, which he does not understand and in which he finds himself pure chance, Bulgakov clearly contrasts the story of Vsevolod Ivanov, famous at that time, “Armored Train No. 14.69”, the hero of which, the Red Army soldier Sin-Bin-U, has a class instinct, takes the side of the Red Army and sacrifices himself for the sake of a common victory.

Three years later, the heroes " Chinese history” moved into Bulgakov’s play “Zoyka’s Apartment” - the lonely lost Sen-Zin-Po turned into a Chinese bandit and murderer, and the old Chinese, the owner of an opium den, became the owner of a laundry in the play.

"Khan's Fire" (1924)

"Khan's Fire" also stands apart in the series of Bulgakov's stories: it is a completely fictional story with a strong plot and unexpected ending, written by Bulgakov almost as a bet:

“A rather sophisticated short story writer himself, V.P. Kataev, comparing our writers with O’Henry, once complained:
- They write poorly, boringly, no invention. You read the first two paragraphs, and then you don’t have to read any further. The denouement has been solved. The story is seen right through to the last point.
Touched to the quick, our other short story writer, Bulgakov, suddenly interjects:
“I swear and promise: I’ll write a story, and you won’t be able to unravel the plot until you read the last line.”

Ivan Ovchinnikov.“In the editorial office of “Gudk””

The story takes place in the Khan's Headquarters estate-museum. The old caretaker Jonah, who served with its former owners even before the revolution, shows the palace to a group of young tourists. Among them, he notes two mysterious visitors - “naked” in only shorts and pince-nez and a foreigner in gold glasses. The palace evokes different feelings among visitors - Komsomol members, a naked man, a bourgeois lady with her daughter, a mysterious foreigner. In the end, having sent the visitors away, Jonah is about to close the museum, notices that same mysterious foreigner and suddenly recognizes his face. The ending of the story, as Bulgakov promised, is impossible to predict in advance.

The prototype of the palace was probably the Arkhangelskoye estate, which Bulgakov visited in 1923. A curious detail: Bulgakov then used the surname of the main character Tugai-Beg as his pseudonym.

In the story, an important theme for Bulgakov appears: emigration and the confrontation between the pre-revolutionary world (a mysterious foreigner in gold glasses) and the new Soviet reality (young Komsomol excursionists). In 1921, Bulgakov himself almost left Russia on a ship from Batum to Constantinople, and before that, in 1920, in Vladikavkaz, he was going to leave the city with the whites, but fell ill with typhus. Tatyana Lappa later recalled how Bulgakov reproached her:

""You - weak woman, couldn’t take me out!“ But when two doctors tell me that he will die at the first stop, how could I take him? They told me: “What do you want - to take him to Kazbek and bury him?”

The second wife of Mikhail Bulgakov, Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, went into exile. The writer asked her about Constantinople when he wrote the play “Running”.

"Blizzard" (1926)

The story “Blizzard” is part of the famous cycle “Notes of a Young Doctor” - and the symbolic depth of the story, the intensity of the action, the almost cinematic precision in the image main stage chases and a happy ending make “Blizzard,” as it seems, the main and most exciting story in the cycle.

A young doctor, seeing a hundred peasants a day, is enjoying unexpected peace and a hot bath: there is a blizzard outside, and no one has come to the appointment - when suddenly they bring him a note asking him to urgently come to the patient - the fiancee of the clerk whose wedding she was talking about the entire district (“I’m unlucky in life,” I thought sadly, looking at the hot wood in the stove). Cursing everything in the world, the doctor agrees to go, hopelessly watches the death of a young girl, and on the way home, in a raging blizzard, he loses his way. The hero and the fireman accompanying him escape from a pack of wolves (“In my mind I saw short message in the newspaper about themselves and the ill-fated fireman") and get home - the fight with death this time ended in victory, but this fight is not over: “Make me rich,” I muttered, dozing off, “but I don’t care anymore...” “You’ll go... ah, you’ll go...” the blizzard whistled mockingly.”

The dramatic story produced such strong impression to readers that one of them sent his response to the editor with a description of a similar case: “Wolves: from the life of local health workers in the village. Balaklaya, Izyum district."

Seven stories from “Notes of a Young Doctor” were published in 1925-1926 in the magazine “Medical Worker”. They are based on real events from the life of the writer: in September 1916, he came to work as a zemstvo doctor in the village of Nikolskoye, Sychevsky district (Smolensk province) and worked in a remote region as the only doctor for almost a year - until September 20, 1917. Even then he began to make the first drafts of stories about his life in Nikolskoye. Although the writer shifts the narrative by one year (the action begins in 1917, not 1916), and main character he is single, otherwise the stories fairly accurately reflect his biography.

A few years later, in a letter to the USSR Government, Bulgakov called one of his main tasks “the persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the best layer in our country.” One of these Russian intellectuals, undoubtedly, was the young hero of “Notes of a Young Doctor.”

"I Killed" (1926)

One of the most important Bulgakov themes of the first half of the 1920s, associated with the understanding of the experience of the Civil War, was the theme of collective responsibility. As Marietta Chudakova wrote, “participation—even if through inaction—in the murder of compatriots, placing an irredeemable burden on the entire future fate each individually and all together - this biographical motif will form the basis of Bulgakov’s artistic world.”

Three stories especially stand out here: the earlier “Red Crown” and “ Extraordinary Adventures Doctor" and the later "I Killed". So, main character The “Red Crown” is unable to prevent murder and death, and this literally drives him crazy: “I left so as not to see how a man was hanged, but the fear left with me in shaking legs.” He is hopelessly trying to go back to the past and change the course of events.

The story “I Killed” is interesting precisely because in it, it seems, for the first and last time in art world Bulgakov violates this principle of the hero’s inaction and the subsequent painful feeling of guilt.

The main character of the story, Doctor Yashvin, in the company of friends, tells how seven years ago he deliberately killed a patient. In the winter of 1919, he was forcibly mobilized by the Petliurists retreating from Kyiv, and he witnessed the atrocities and cruelties of Colonel Leshchenko. One day the doctor was called to the colonel to bandage a wound: some unfortunate tortured man managed to rush at him with a penknife. It is here that the very fork in the road that tormented the hero of the story “The Red Crown” passes. The doctor turns from a passive witness into a participant and intervenes in what is happening: “Everything before my eyes became blurred, even to the point of nausea, and I felt that now the most terrible and amazing events in my ill-fated doctoral life." Doctor Yashvin shot the colonel and escaped from Petlyura's captivity.

Dr. Yashvin, a dapper, brave, successful, calm and secretive man, undoubtedly carries the traits of Bulgakov. The plot of the story is also partially autobiographical: in the winter of 1919, Bulgakov, as a doctor, was forcibly mobilized by the Petliurists who fled from the Bolsheviks who were advancing on Kyiv. While captured by the Petliurites, he witnessed the murder of a man on a bridge. The shocked writer was able to escape at night:

“And then at three o’clock [at night] suddenly there were these calls!.. Varka and I rushed Varvara, sister of Mikhail Bulgakov. open the door - well, of course he does. For some reason, he ran hard, trembled all over, and was in a terrible state - so nervous. They put him to bed, and after that he lay sick for a whole week.”

Tatyana Lappa

Painful memories of what he saw in captivity were reflected in Bulgakov’s work. Thus, in the novel " White Guard"A scene of the murder of a Jew appears at the Chain Bridge:

“The master of the kurennoy did not calculate the blow and with lightning speed lowered the ramrod on his head. Something grunted in her, the black one no longer responded with a “wow”... Turning his hand and shaking his head, he fell from his knees to the side and, broadly waving his other hand, threw it away, as if he wanted to grab more of the trampled and manured land for himself. The fingers bent crookedly and scooped up the dirty snow. Then, in the dark puddle, the man lying in convulsions twitched several times and became silent.”

Famous writer, playwright and theater director, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born in 1891 in Kyiv. In 1909, Mikhail entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University, from which he graduated with honors in 1916. While studying, he marries Tatyana Lappa (the first of Bulgakov's three wives). For about five years, Mikhail worked as a military doctor.

In 1921, he moved to Moscow and began working as a feuilletonist in various metropolitan newspapers. At the same time he publishes individual works in the newspaper "Nakanune", published in Berlin. In 1923, Bulgakov joined the All-Russian Writers Union, and in 1925 he wrote the novel “ dog's heart", which will be published for the first time only in 1968. The publication took place simultaneously in the magazines "Grani" (Frankfurt) and "Student" (London). In the Soviet Union, this work was first published in 1987 and has since been republished several times. The Italians were the first to film this novel in 1976, and in our country, “Heart of a Dog” was filmed only in the late 80s. The director of the film was Vladimir Bortko.

In the fall of 1926, Bulgakov’s play “Days of the Turbins” was staged at the Moscow Art Theater, which was positively received by both critics and fans of the author. Until 1930, when the writer’s work was banned by the Soviet government, everyone theater season began with new productions based on Bulgakov's novels.

After much repression by the country's party leadership, Bulgakov became director of the Moscow Art Theater and held this position until 1936. Over the next few years, Mikhail worked at the Bolshoi Theater as a translator and librettist. Among his most famous librettos are “Minin and Pozharsky”, as well as “Peter I”.

In 1939, the author’s health deteriorated sharply, and during the same period he began dictating the latest version of the novel “The Master and Margarita” to his wife. On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died of hypertensive nephrosclerosis.

After the author's death, most of his novels were filmed, some even several times. For example, “The Master and Margarita” was filmed not only in our country, but also in Hungary, Yugoslavia and other countries. It should be noted that with every attempt to film the novel, the circumstances amazingly prevented the completion of filming. IN different years Several directors tried to follow through, but the films were never completed, causing the novel to gain a mystical reputation. The novel was released on screen only in December 2005 by director Vladimir Bortko, the author of the cult film adaptation of “Heart of a Dog.”

Born into the family of a teacher at the Kyiv Theological Academy, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna. He was the eldest child in the family and had six more brothers and sisters.

In 1901-1909 he studied at the First Kyiv Gymnasium, after graduating from which he entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. He studied there for seven years and applied to serve as a doctor in the naval department, but was refused due to health reasons.

In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, he worked as a doctor in front-line hospitals in Kamenets-Podolsk and Chernivtsi, in the Kiev military hospital. In 1915 he married Tatyana Nikolaevna Lappa. On October 31, 1916, he received a diploma “as a doctor with honors.”

In 1917, he first used morphine to relieve the symptoms of diphtheria vaccination and became addicted to it. In the same year he visited Moscow and in 1918 returned to Kyiv, where he began private practice as a venereologist, having stopped using morphine.

In 1919, during the Civil War, Mikhail Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor, first into the Ukrainian army people's republic, then to the Red Army, then to the Armed Forces of Southern Russia, then transferred to the Red Cross. At this time he began working as a correspondent. On November 26, 1919, the feuilleton “Future Prospects” was first published in the newspaper “Grozny” with the signature of M.B. He fell ill with typhus in 1920 and remained in Vladikavkaz, without retreating to Georgia with the Volunteer Army.

In 1921, Mikhail Bulgakov moved to Moscow and entered the service of the Glavpolitprosvet under the People's Commissariat for Education, headed by N.K. Krupskaya, wife of V.I. Lenin. In 1921, after the disbandment of the department, he collaborated with the newspapers “Gudok”, “Worker” and the magazines “Red Journal for Everyone”, “Medical Worker”, “Russia” under the pseudonym Mikhail Bull and M.B., wrote and published in 1922 -1923 years “Notes on Cuffs”, participates in literary circles “ Green lamp", "Nikitinsky subbotniks".

In 1924 he divorced his wife and in 1925 married Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya. This year the story “Heart of a Dog”, the plays “Zoyka’s Apartment” and “Days of the Turbins” were written and published satirical stories"Diaboliad", story " Fatal eggs».

In 1926, the play “Days of the Turbins” was staged with great success at the Moscow Art Theater, permitted on the personal orders of I. Stalin, who visited it 14 times. At the theater. E. Vakhtangov premiered the play “Zoyka’s Apartment” with great success, which ran from 1926 to 1929. M. Bulgakov moves to Leningrad, there he meets with Anna Akhmatova and Yevgeny Zamyatin and is summoned several times for interrogation by the OGPU about his literary creativity. The Soviet press intensively criticizes the work of Mikhail Bulgakov - over 10 years, 298 abusive reviews and positive ones appeared.

In 1927, the play “Running” was written.

In 1929, Mikhail Bulgakov met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, who became his third wife in 1932.

In 1929, the works of M. Bulgakov ceased to be published, the plays were banned from production. Then on March 28, 1930, he wrote a letter to the Soviet government asking either for the right to emigrate or for the opportunity to work at the Moscow Art Theater in Moscow. On April 18, 1930, I. Stalin called Bulgakov and recommended that he apply to the Moscow Art Theater with a request for enrollment.

1930-1936 Mikhail Bulgakov worked at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director. The events of those years were described in “Notes of a Dead Man” - “Theatrical Novel”. In 1932, I. Stalin personally allowed the production of “The Days of the Turbins” only at the Moscow Art Theater.

In 1934 Mikhail Bulgakov was accepted into Soviet Union writers and completed the first version of the novel “The Master and Margarita”.

In 1936, Pravda published a devastating article about the “false, reactionary and worthless” play “The Cabal of the Saints,” which had been rehearsed for five years at the Moscow Art Theater. Mikhail Bulgakov went to work at the Bolshoi Theater as a translator and libbretist.

In 1939 he wrote the play “Batum” about I. Stalin. During its production, a telegram arrived about the cancellation of the performance. And it began sharp deterioration health of Mikhail Bulgakov. Hypertensive nephrosclerosis was diagnosed, his vision began to deteriorate, and the writer began using morphine again. At this time, he was dictating to his wife the latest versions of the novel “The Master and Margarita.” The wife issues a power of attorney to manage all her husband’s affairs. The novel “The Master and Margarita” was published only in 1966 and brought world fame to the writer.

On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died, on March 11, the sculptor S.D. Merkulov removed from his face death mask. M.A. Bulgakov was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery, where on his grave, at the request of his wife, a stone from the grave of N.V. was installed. Gogol, nicknamed "Golgotha".

"Evening" invites you to remember the most famous works masters of literature of the 20th century.

"The White Guard" (novel, 1922-1924)

In his first novel, Bulgakov describes the events of the Civil War at the end of 1918. The action of the book takes place in Kyiv, in particular, in the house in which the writer’s family lived at that time. Almost all characters have prototypes - relatives, friends and acquaintances of the Bulgakovs. Despite the fact that the manuscripts of the novel have not survived, fans of the novel have traced the fate of many prototype characters and proved the almost documentary accuracy and reality of the events described by the author.

Part of the book was first published in the magazine "Russia" in 1925. The entire novel was published two years later in France. The opinions of critics were divided - the Soviet side criticized the writer’s glorification of class enemies, the emigrant side criticized loyalty to the authorities.

In 1923 Bulgakov wrote: “I dare to assure you, this will be a novel that will make the sky feel hot...”. The book served as the source for the play "Days of the Turbins" and several film adaptations.

“Diaboliada” (story, 1923)

In “the story of how the twins killed the clerk,” Bulgakov reveals the problem “ little man", who became a victim of the Soviet bureaucratic machine, which in the imagination of the clerk Korotkov is associated with devilish power. Unable to cope with the demons of bureaucracy, a fired employee goes crazy. The story was first published in the almanac “Nedra” in 1924.

“Fatal Eggs” (story, 1924)

1928 The brilliant zoologist Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov discovers the amazing phenomenon of the stimulating effect of light from the red part of the spectrum on embryos - organisms begin to develop much faster and achieve greater large sizes than the "originals". There is only one drawback - such individuals are distinguished by aggressiveness and the ability to reproduce rapidly.

After a chicken pestilence spreads across the country, one state farm, led by a man named Rokk, decides to use Persikov’s discovery to restore the chicken population. Rokk takes the irradiation chambers from the professor, however, as a result of a mistake, instead of chicken eggs, he gets crocodiles, ostrich and snake eggs. The hatched reptiles continually multiply - sweeping away everything in their path, they move towards Moscow.

The plot of the book echoes the novel written in 1904 H.G. Wells"Food of the Gods", in which scientists invent a powder that causes significant growth in animals and plants. Experiments lead to the appearance in England of giant rats and wasps attacking people, later they are joined by giant plants, chickens and giant people.

According to philologist Boris Sokolov, the prototypes of Professor Persikov could be the famous biologist Alexander Gurvich and the leader of the world proletariat Vladimir Lenin.

In 1995, director Sergei Lomkin made a film of the same name based on the story, in which he used characters from the novel "Master and Margarita"- the cat Behemoth (Roman Madyanov) and Woland himself (Mikhail Kozakov). Performed the role of Professor Persikov brilliantly Oleg Yankovsky.

“Heart of a Dog” (story, 1925)

1924 The outstanding surgeon Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky achieves fantastic results in the field of practical rejuvenation and conceives an unprecedented experiment - an operation to transplant a human pituitary gland into a dog. The professor uses the stray dog ​​Sharik as a test animal, and the thief Klim Chugunkin, who died in a fight, becomes the organ donor.

Gradually, Sharik's limbs stretch out, his hair falls out, speech and a human appearance appear. Soon Professor Preobrazhensky will have to bitterly regret what he did.

Many Bulgakov scholars are of the opinion that the writer depicted Stalin (Sharikov), Lenin (Preobrazhensky), Trotsky (Bormenthal) and Zinoviev (assistant Zina) in the book. In addition, it is believed that in this story Bulgakov predicted the mass repressions of the 1930s.

In 1926, during a search in Bulgakov’s apartment, manuscripts "Heart of a Dog" were confiscated and returned to the author only after the petition of Maxim Gorky.

In 1976, Italian director Alberto Lattuada made a film of the same name with Max von Sydow in the role of Professor Preobrazhensky, but it was not particularly popular. A completely different fate awaited.

"The Master and Margarita" (novel, 1929-1940)

Satire, farce, fantasy, mysticism, melodrama, parable, myth... sometimes it seems that this book combines all possible and impossible genres.

Satan, who introduced himself as Woland, wanders the world with goals known only to him, stopping from time to time in different cities and villages. During the spring full moon, his journey takes him to Moscow in the 1930s - a place and time where no one believes in Satan or God, denying the existence of Jesus Christ in history.

Everyone who comes into contact with Woland is punished for their inherent sins: bribery, drunkenness, selfishness, greed, indifference, lies, rudeness, etc.

The master who wrote a novel about Pontius Pilate is in a madhouse, where harsh criticism from his literary contemporaries brought him. His mistress Margarita dreams of only one thing - to find the Master and bring him back. Azazello gives hope for the fulfillment of this dream, but to make it come true, Margarita must provide Woland with one service.

The first edition of the novel contained a detailed description of the signs of the “stranger” (Woland) 15 in length handwritten pages. In early editions of the novel, the character's name was Astaroth. In the 1930s, the title of “master” in Soviet journalism and newspapers was firmly assigned to Maxim Gorky.

According to the writer’s widow, Elena Sergeevna, last words Bulgakov about the novel “The Master and Margarita” before his death were: “So that they know... So that they know.”

The Master and Margarita was not published during the author's lifetime. It was first published only in 1966, 26 years after Bulgakov’s death, with banknotes, in an abbreviated magazine version. The novel gained noticeable popularity among the Soviet intelligentsia and, until its official publication (in 1973), was distributed in hand-typed copies. Elena Sergeevna managed to preserve the manuscript of the novel during all these years.

Performances based on the novel, staged by Valery Belyakovich, were extremely popular; films by Andrzej Wajda and Alexander Petrovich and television series by Yuri Kara and were also made.

« Theatrical novel"("Notes of a Dead Man") (1936-1937)

An unfinished novel, written on behalf of a certain writer Sergei Leontyevich Maksudov, talks about the theater behind the scenes and the world of writers.

Work on the book began on November 26, 1936. On the first page of the manuscript, Bulgakov indicated two titles: “Notes of a Dead Man” and “Theatrical Novel”, and the first was underlined twice by the author.

Most researchers consider the novel to be Bulgakov's funniest work. It was created with extraordinary ease: in one go, without drafts, outlines or any corrections. Elena Sergeevna recalled that while she, upon Mikhail Afanasyevich’s return in the evening from Bolshoi Theater, she served dinner, he sat down at his desk and wrote a few pages, after which he came out to her unusually pleased, rubbing his hands with pleasure.

“Ivan Vasilyevich” (play, 1936)

Engineer Nikolai Timofeev makes a time machine in an apartment in Moscow. When the house manager Bunsha comes to see him, the engineer turns the key in the machine, and the wall between the apartments disappears, revealing the thief Georges Miloslavsky sitting in the apartment of Shpak's neighbor. Timofeev opens a portal to the times of Moscow in the 16th century. Frightened, Ivan the Terrible rushes into the present, and Bunsha and Miloslavsky find themselves in the past.

This story began in 1933, when Bulgakov agreed with the music hall to write a “fun play.” Her first text was called “Bliss” - in it the time machine went into the communist future, and Ivan the Terrible appeared only in an episode.

Mikhail Bulgakov is a Russian writer and playwright, the author of many works that today are considered classics of Russian literature. It is enough to name such novels as “The Master and Margarita”, “The White Guard” and the stories “Diaboliad”, “Heart of a Dog”, “Notes on the Cuffs”. Many of Bulgakov's books and plays have been filmed.

Childhood and youth

Mikhail was born in Kyiv in the family of professor-theologian Afanasy Ivanovich and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna, who was raising seven children. Misha was the oldest child and, whenever possible, helped his parents manage the household. Of the other Bulgakov children, Nikolai, who became a biologist, Ivan, who became famous in emigration as a balalaika musician, and Varvara, who turned out to be the prototype of Elena Turbina in the novel “The White Guard,” became famous.

After graduating from high school, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the university at the Faculty of Medicine. His choice turned out to be connected solely with mercantile desires - both uncles of the future writer were doctors and earned very good money. For a boy who grew up in a large family, this nuance was fundamental.

During the First World War, Mikhail Afanasyevich served in the front-line zone as a doctor, after which he practiced medicine in Vyazma, and later in Kyiv, as a venereologist. In the early 20s he moved to Moscow and began literary activity, first as a feuilletonist, later as a playwright and theater director of the Moscow Art Theater and Central Theater working youth.

Books

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

About the beginning of your medical activities Mikhail Afanasyevich told in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor,” which is still read with great interest today. The story “Morphine” especially stands out. One of the most important famous books author - “Heart of a Dog”, although in reality it is a subtle satire on Bulgakov’s contemporary reality. At the same time it was written fantastic story"Fatal Eggs"

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

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

Theater

Back in 1925, Mikhail Bulgakov’s plays were staged on the stage of Moscow theaters with great success - “Zoyka’s Apartment”, “Days of the Turbins” based on the novel “The White Guard”, “Running”, “Crimson Island”. A year later, the ministry wanted to ban the production of “Days of the Turbins” as an “anti-Soviet thing,” but it was decided not to do this, since Stalin really liked the performance, who visited it 14 times.

Soon, Bulgakov's plays were removed from the repertoire of all theaters in the country, and only in 1930, after the personal intervention of the Leader, Mikhail Afanasyevich was reinstated as a playwright and director.

He stages Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Dickens's " Pickwick Club", but his original plays "", "Bliss", "Ivan Vasilyevich" and others were never published during the playwright’s lifetime.

The only exception was the play “The Cabal of the Holy One,” staged based on Bulgakov’s play “” in 1936 after a five-year series of refusals. The premiere took place from a huge success, but the troupe managed to give only 7 performances, after which the play was banned. After this, Mikhail Afanasyevich quits the theater and subsequently earns a living as a translator.

Personal life

The first wife of the great writer was Tatyana Lappa. Their wedding was more than poor - the bride did not even have a veil, and they then lived very modestly. By the way, it was Tatyana who became the prototype for Anna Kirillovna from the story “Morphine”.

In 1925, Bulgakov met Lyubov Belozerskaya, who came from an old family of princes. She was fond of literature and fully understood Mikhail Afanasyevich as a creator. The writer immediately divorces Lappa and marries Belozerskaya.

And in 1932 he meets Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, née Nuremberg. A man leaves his second wife and leads his third down the aisle. By the way, it was Elena who was depicted in his most famous novel in the image of Margarita. Bulgakov lived with his third wife until the end of his life, and it was she who made titanic efforts to ensure that the works of her loved one were subsequently published. Mikhail had no children with any of his wives.

There is a funny arithmetic-mystical situation with Bulgakov’s spouses. Each of them had three official marriages, like himself. Moreover, for the first wife Tatyana, Mikhail was the first husband, for the second Lyubov - the second, and for the third Elena, respectively, the third. So Bulgakov’s mysticism is present not only in books, but also in life.

Death

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

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

Bibliography

• 1922 - “The Adventures of Chichikov”
• 1923 - “Notes of a Young Doctor”
• 1923 - “Diaboliad”
• 1923 - “Notes on Cuffs”
• 1924 - “White Guard”
• 1924 - “Fatal Eggs”
• 1925 - “Heart of a Dog”
• 1925 - “Zoyka’s Apartment”
• 1928 - “Running”
• 1929 - “To a Secret Friend”
• 1929 - “Cabal of the Saint”
• 1929-1940 - “The Master and Margarita”
• 1933 - “The Life of Monsieur de Molière”
• 1936 - “Ivan Vasilyevich”
• 1937 - “Theatrical Romance”