The Master and the Muse: Mikhail Bulgakov was born 135 years ago
Exactly 135 years ago, on May 15, 1891, one of the most mysterious and controversial Russian writers, Mikhail Bulgakov, was born. His works bizarrely combine mysticism and realism, satire and compassion, the human and the supernatural. On the birthday of the great writer, who gave the world "The Master and Margarita", "The Heart of a Dog" and "The White Guard", Izvestia recalls his life and work.
Childhood and youth
Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev into an educated, intelligent family of a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy and a teacher at a girls' gymnasium. He was the eldest child in the family: he had four sisters and two brothers. All the children received excellent home education, which was attended by their mother, Varvara Mikhailovna. At an early age, Bulgakov learned Greek, German, English, French, and Latin. The family was in good standing — the Bulgakovs were known and respected in Kiev.
The house of the Soviet writer Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov in Kiev on Andreevsky Descent
The Bulgakovs often played music, and the children were taken to exhibitions, the opera, and concerts. The family even organized charity performances in shelters, which were attended by both children and parents. There was always a huge amount of books in the house, which little Mikhail read. Soon the boy began to write short stories about his hometown and its inhabitants himself.
In 1901, Mikhail was enrolled in the most prestigious educational institution in the city — the First Kiev Men's Gymnasium. The school followed progressive teaching methods — special emphasis was placed on critical thinking, and expressing one's own opinion was encouraged. Studying was easy for the young man. At the same time, Bulgakov was restless and loved to joke and make others laugh. He quickly became the life of the company thanks to his gift for comedy and improvisation.
The desk of the writer Mikhail Bulgakov
In 1907, the writer's father became seriously ill and died. The family began to experience acute financial difficulties. Nevertheless, all the children continued their studies in the best schools in the city, Varvara Mikhailovna said: "I can't give you a dowry or capital. But the only capital I can give you is education."
Bulgakov himself began working part-time to help his mother: he gave lessons and served as a conductor on the railway.
Medicine, addiction, and first love
In 1909, Mikhail graduated from the men's gymnasium and entered the medical faculty of Kiev University. The main thing in choosing a specialty was the profitability of the profession: Both of Bulgakov's uncles worked as doctors and earned well.
In his second year, Bulgakov met Tatiana Lappa. The girl came to Kiev on vacation to visit relatives. Her aunt was friends with Mikhail's mother, so the young man was asked to show Tatiana the city. The young people quickly fell in love with each other: they walked for days on end, and in the evening went to the Opera House. However, the happiness did not last long — Lappa returned to her hometown, Saratov. Bulgakov was having a hard time parting with his beloved and was not even able to transfer to the 3rd year of university because of this.
In 1912, Lappa entered the historical and philological department of the Higher Women's Courses in Kiev - the lovers finally met. In 1913, the couple got married. The Bulgakovs lived on a grand scale, without having sufficient funds for this. Tatiana's father sent money to the young people, but they spent it all in the first few days. Due to financial difficulties and inability to save money, the wedding was very modest - the bride was not even wearing a wedding dress with a veil. Young people often pawned jewelry, which horrified the girl's parents.
House No. 13 on Reitarskaya Street, where Mikhail Bulgakov and his wife Tatiana Lappa lived in 1913-1917
Soon the First World War began. Bulgakov and Lappa began to help in the Red Cross infirmary: Mikhail, as a 4th-year student, was on duty as a future doctor, and Tatiana was a nurse. In 1915, Bulgakov tried to volunteer for the front, but due to chronic kidney disease, the young doctor was declared unfit.
In 1916, Bulgakov passed his exams with honors and became an official doctor. Immediately after that, he went to the Southwestern Front as a volunteer, but this time from the Red Cross. It was the time of the famous Brusilovsky breakthrough, so there were a lot of wounded there.
In September 1916, Bulgakov was recalled from the front — all the doctors had gone to war, and there was a catastrophic shortage of doctors in the villages. Recent graduates began to be massively distributed to villages and counties. So the future writer ended up in the Smolensk province, becoming the only doctor in the Nikolsky zemsky hospital of the Sychevsky district. Bulgakov was frankly bored in the village, and he found an outlet in his first writing trial. Based on the events of his medical practice in the district, Bulgakov created stories that later became part of the series "Notes of a Young doctor."
In 1917, Bulgakov contracted diphtheria from a sick child. The pain was unbearable, and the writer injected himself with morphine, a popular painkiller of the time. By the time he recovered, Bulgakov had become addicted to the drug. The wife tried to help her husband cope with addiction: she suffered sudden mood swings, injected distilled water instead of the drug.
In 1918, Dr. Ivan Voskresensky took over Bulgakov's treatment in Kiev: after a year of daily morphine use, the writer was able to get rid of addiction and never returned to it. This episode will further influence Bulgakov's work and will be reflected in the story "Morphine".
There, in Kiev, Bulgakov opened a private reception on venereology. He did not give up on creativity — in the evenings after work, the doctor wrote stories. However, private practice did not last long — already in 1919, the White Army called Bulgakov as a military doctor in Vladikavkaz.
The Revolutionary Committee and the stage
The time in the country was extremely unstable — there were wars, the government was constantly changing. While working in Vladikavkaz, Bulgakov fell ill with typhus, and when he came to his senses, it turned out that the Red Army had already occupied the city. Bulgakov decided not to talk about his medical degree, so that he would not be mobilized to war zones again. Instead, he decided to join the revolutionary committee and earn a living by writing.
Writer and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov (fifth from left in the front row) among the artists of the Moscow Academic Art Theater after the premiere of the play based on his play "The Days of the Turbins" (based on his novel "The White Guard"). 1926
So Bulgakov became the head of the literary and theatrical departments. The writer began to work vigorously at his new place: almost every evening he organized literary meetings, public readings and historical lectures. The writer began composing plays and putting them on stage. That's how the light saw the comedy "Self-Defense" and the drama "The Turbine Brothers." The latter were a huge success, gathering a full house each time. Gradually, writing turned from a hobby into a steady income, and Bulgakov saw potential in it.
Moscow and the beginning of a literary career
In 1921, Bulgakov moved to Moscow. In order not to starve to death, he got a job as a chronicler at the Trade and Industrial Bulletin. After the magazine closed, Bulgakov joined the Rabochy newspaper, and then became a letter processor at Gudka, where the most famous writers of the time were published: Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov, Yuri Olesha, Valentin Kataev and others. Bulgakov's texts quickly attracted the attention of readers, and he began to be published in almost every issue of the publication. It was on the wanderers of the "Gudka" that the satirical stories "The Adventures of Chichikov" and "The Cup of Life" were published. During the same period, the autobiographical "Notes on Cuffs" about the hungry and impoverished life of a modern writer were published in the emigrant pro-Soviet magazine "On the Eve".
The house described by Mikhail Bulgakov in the novel "The White Guard"
In 1923, the writer began work on the novel "The White Guard", which in the future would become one of Bulgakov's most recognizable works. The writer lived with Tatiana Lappa in a small room in a dormitory. He wrote the novel in the evenings. Sometimes his fingers froze to such an extent that he asked his wife to bring a basin of hot water. The writer held his hands there until the sensitivity returned, and continued to work.
In the same year, Bulgakov wrote the novel "The Devil's Garden" and a number of other works and short stories. Contemporaries, such as Evgeny Zamyatin, praised Bulgakov for his unusual composition and skillful interweaving of the otherworldly, fantastic with everyday and mundane.
Theater, new love and Stalin's call
In 1924, the newspaper "On the Eve" organized a creative evening. There Bulgakov met Lyubov Belozerskaya. The woman had been in exile with her husband for a long time, but returned to her homeland after the divorce. The meeting turned out to be fatal: a fast-paced romance and a woman's deep admiration for the writer's work led to Bulgakov's divorce from Lappa and an early marriage to Belozerskaya.
Lyubov Belozerskaya's rights in the new permanent exhibition of the M.A. Bulgakov Museum in Moscow
In 1924, Bulgakov gained popularity thanks to the fantastic story "Fatal Eggs", which takes place in the future. At the same time, Rossiya magazine published two parts of The White Guard, which Bulgakov dedicated to his new wife. Although the third part was never published — the magazine went bankrupt — Mikhail received an offer to put the novel on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater.
The writer set about reworking the novel into a play, which he renamed The Days of the Turbins. At the same time, in 1925, he created the play "Zoikin's Apartment", which was staged on the stage of the Vakhtangov Theater. The audience liked the productions, but the critics, on the contrary, were dissatisfied, considering the works anti-Soviet for their sympathy for the White Army.
Because of this, the authorities began to closely monitor Bulgakov's actions, and even searched him. Mikhail's diary and the satirical novel "The Heart of a Dog" were seized. Subsequently, thanks to the support of Maxim Gorky, the manuscripts were returned, but the story was not officially allowed to be published. Copies of it were distributed through samizdat.
In 1928, Bulgakov wrote another play for the Moscow Art Theater, a drama about the emigrant fate of "Beg". The theater enthusiastically accepted the play, but the Chief Executive Committee forbade the production — Joseph Stalin personally read the work and called it an anti-Soviet phenomenon. In 1929, the Glavrepertkom forbade theaters to stage all of the writer's plays. Only after getting out of hopeless poverty, Bulgakov was again left without income, but with huge debts. He attempted to emigrate and even wrote a personal letter to Stalin asking him to allow him to leave the USSR, but was refused.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) at the II All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers in February 1935
In the fall, Bulgakov wrote a new play, "The Cabal of Saints," about a writer who is inconvenient for the king and the church, and who is tormented by other characters in every possible way. The production was initially allowed, but when the parallel between Bulgakov's lack of rights before the authorities and his hero became obvious, the play was banned. Then the writer again sent a letter to the government of the USSR with a request to leave the country. In it, Bulgakov appealed to the fact that the ban on writing was for him equivalent to "destruction" and "burial alive."
On April 18, 1930, the telephone in the writer's apartment rang. It was Stalin.
— Where do you want to work? In the Art Theater?
— Yes, I would like to. But I talked about it, and they turned me down.
— And you apply there. It seems to me that they will agree.
In May, Bulgakov was hired as an assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater. There he staged performances based on classical works.: "War and Peace", "Don Quixote", "Dead Souls", etc.
"The Master and Margarita", the third marriage, death
In 1932, at an evening with friends, Bulgakov met Elena Shilovskaya. Soon, a secret romance began between them. Shilovskaya's husband, a high-ranking official, having learned about his wife's lover, refused to give a divorce and forbade meetings with the writer. The confrontation lasted a year, after which the spouse nevertheless gave a divorce. Bulgakov also divorced Belozerskaya, and the couple got married.
In 1933, Bulgakov resumed work on The Novel about the Devil, which he had begun in the late 1920s. During the struggle against the prohibitions of the Soviet government, the writer burned the first manuscript, which complicated his case. Bulgakov could not decide on a name for his future masterpiece for a long time. Among the draft options were "Consultant with a hoof", "Engineer's hoof" and even "Tour (Woland)".
Anastasia Kolpikova as Margarita, Dmitry Vysotsky as the Master and Mikhail Lukin as Woland in a scene from the play "The Master and Margarita" at the launch of the 54th season of the Moscow Taganka Theater
Interestingly, in the very first, destroyed version of the manuscript, there was neither the Master nor Margarita. Elena Shilovskaya served as the prototype for Margarita. After meeting her, the storyline about Pontius Pilate and the wandering philosopher Yeshua ceased to be the main one and turned into a work written by the hand of a Master.
While working on The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov carried out serious research work: he studied theological works, philosophical works and encyclopedias. Bulgakov cannot achieve perfection in any way, in his opinion.: although the novel was completed in 1938, the writer continued to edit it until his death.
At the end of 1939, the author's health deteriorated sharply. He managed to make the last adjustments to the text of "The Master and Margarita" in February 1940, when he was already dying and dictating edits. Bulgakov passed away on March 10 of the same year. After the cremation, the urn with his ashes was placed in the grave at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
