Mikhail Bulgakov

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:Bulgakov.jpg Mikhail Afanasievich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков; Template:OldStyleDate, Kiev – March 10, 1940, Moscow) was a Russian novelist and playwright of the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for the novel The Master and Margarita.

Contents

[edit]

Biography

Mikhail Bulgakov was born to Russian parents in Kiev, Ukraine, the oldest son of a professor at a theological seminary. The Bulgakov sons enlisted in the White Army, and in post-Civil War Russia, ended up in Paris, save for Mikhail. Mikhail Bulgakov, who enlisted as a field doctor, ended up in the Caucasus, where he eventually began working as a journalist. Despite his relatively favored status under the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin, Bulgakov was prevented from either emigrating or visiting his brothers in the West.

In 1913 Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa. In 1916, he graduated from the Medical School of Kiev University. In 1921, he moved with Tatiana to Moscow. Three years later, divorced from his first wife, he married Lyubov' Belozerskaya. In 1932, Bulgakov married for the third time, to Yelena Shilovskaya, who would prove to be inspiration for the character Margarita from his most famous novel, and settled with her at Patriarch's Ponds. During the last decade of his life, Bulgakov continued to work on The Master and Margarita, wrote plays, critical works, stories, and made several translations and dramatisations of novels.

Bulgakov never supported the regime, and mocked it in many of his works. Therefore, most of them were consigned to his desk drawer for several decades. In 1930 he wrote a letter to Stalin requesting permission to emigrate and received a personal phone call from Stalin himself, denying him that. In his autobiography and in many biographies, it is stated that Bulgakov wrote the letter out of desperation and mental anguish, never actually intending to post it. Stalin, consequently, did not so much "favor" Bulgakov, as stated above, as enjoy tormenting him, along with many artists of the Soviet era. The refusal of the authorities to let him work in the theater and his desire to see his family living abroad, whom he had not seen for many years, led him to seek drastic measures. Bulgakov died from an inherited kidney disorder in 1940 and was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

[edit]

Early works

During his life, Bulgakov was best known for the plays he contributed to Konstantin Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theatre. They say that Stalin was fond of the play Days of the Turbins (Дни Турбиных) (1926), which was based on Bulgakov's novel The White Guard. His dramatization of Moliere's life in The Cabal of Hypocrites (Кабала святош) is still run by the Moscow Art Theatre. Even after his plays were banned from the theatres, Bulgakov wrote a grotesquely funny comedy about Ivan the Terrible's visit into 1930s Moscow and several plays about the young years of Stalin. This perhaps saved his life in the year of terror 1937, when nearly all writers who did not support the leadership of Stalin were purged.

Bulgakov started writing prose in the early 1920s, when he wrote The White Guard (Белая гвардия) (1924, published in 1966) - a novel about a life of a White Army officer's family in Civil war Kiev, and a short story collection entitled Notes of a Young Doctor (Записки юного врача), based on Bulgakov's work as a country doctor in 1916 - 1919. In the mid-1920s, he came to admire the works of H.G. Wells and wrote several stories with sci-fi style elements, notably The Fatal Eggs (Роковые яйца) (1924) and the Heart of a Dog (Собачье сердце) (1925).

The Fatal Eggs, a short story inspired by the works of H.G. Wells, tells of the events of a Professor Persikov, who in experimentation with eggs, discovers a red ray that accelerates growth in living organisms. At the time, an illness passes through the chickens of Moscow, killing most of them and, to remedy the situation, the Soviet government puts the ray into use at a farm. Unfortunately there is a mix up in egg shipments and the Professor ends up with the chicken eggs, while the government-run farm receives a shipment of ostriches, snakes and crocodiles that were meant to go to the Professor. The mistake is not discovered until the eggs produce giant monstrosities that wreak havoc in the suburbs of Moscow and kill most of the workers on the farm. The propaganda machine then turns on Persikov, distorting his nature in the same way his "innocent" tampering created the monsters. This tale of a bungling government earned Bulgakov his label of a counter-revolutionary.

Heart of a Dog features a professor who implants human testicles and pituitary gland into a dog named Sharik. The dog then proceeds to become more and more human as time passes, resulting in all manner of chaos. The tale can be read as a critical satire of the Soviet Union; it was turned into a comic opera called The Murder of Comrade Sharik by William Bergsma in 1973. A hugely popular screen version of the story followed in 1988.

[edit]

The Master and Margarita

It is the fantasy satirical novel The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита), published by his wife almost thirty years after his death, in 1966, that has granted him critical immortality. The book was available underground, as samizdat, for many years in the Soviet Union, before the serialization of a censored version in the journal Moskva. In the opinion of many, The Master and Margarita is the best of the Soviet novels, although it is difficult to imagine Joseph Stalin approving it. The novel contributed a number of sayings to the Russian language, for example, "Manuscripts don't burn". A destroyed manuscript of the Master is an important element of the plot, and in fact Bulgakov had to rewrite the novel from memory after he burned the draft manuscript with his own hands.

[edit]

Synopsis (spoiler)

The novel is a multilayered critique of the Soviet society in general and its literary establishment specifically. It begins with Satan visiting Moscow in 1935, joining a conversation of a critic and a poet, busily debating the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil. It then evolves into a whole scale indictment of the corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and widespread paranoia of Stalinist Russia. Banned but widely read, the novel firmly secured Bulgakov's place among the pantheon of the greatest of Russian writers.

[edit]

Famous catch-phrases

  • "Manuscripts do not burn" ("Рукописи не горят") — The Master and Margarita
  • "There is no second-grade freshness" — The Master and Margarita
  • "Sitting here, not touching anybody, fixing the primus" — The Master and Margarita
[edit]

Bibliography

[edit]

Bibliography in English

Image:Ivanvasil2.jpg

In chronological order of translation

Novels and short stories

  • Great Soviet short stories, New Laurel edition, New York: Dell, 1962, 1990. Contains Adventures of Chichikov.
  • The Master and Margarita, translated by Mirra Ginsburg, New York: Grove Press, 1967, 1995.
  • The Master and Margarita, translated by Michael Glenny, London: Harvill, 1967; with introduction by Simon Franklin, New York: Knopf, 1992; London: Everyman's Library, 1992.
  • Black snow: Theatrical Novel, translated by Michael Glenny, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1967; London: Collins-Harvill, 1986, 1991, 1996.
  • A Country Doctor's Notebook, translated by Michael Glenny, London: Collins-Harvill, 1975, 1990, 1995.
  • Diaboliad and Other Stories, edited by Ellendea Proffer and Carl R. Proffer, translated by Carl R. Proffer, 2d ed. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1990, 1993.
  • The Terrible news: Russian stories from the years following the Revolution, London: Black Spring Press, 1990, 1991. Contains The Red crown.
  • Diaboliad, translated by Carl Proffer with an introduction by Julie Curtis, London: Harvill, 1991.
  • Notes on the Cuff & Other Stories, translated by Alison Rice, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1991.
  • The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire, 1918-1963, edited and translated by Mirra Ginsburg, London: Quartet, 1993.
  • The Master and Margarita, translated by Diana Burgin and Katherine O'Connor, annotations and afterword by Ellendea Proffer, Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1993, 1995.
  • The Master and Margarita, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, London: Penguin, 1997.
  • The Master and Margarita, London: Picador, 1997.

Theater

  • The Early Plays of Mikhail Bulgakov, translated by Carl R. Proffer and Ellendea Proffer, Dana Point: Ardis Publishers, 1990, 1995.
  • Peace plays: two, selected and introduced by D. Lowe, London: Methuen Drama, 1990. Contains Adam and Eve.
  • Zoya's apartment: A tragic farce in three acts, translated by Nicholas Saunders and Frank Dwyer, New York: Samuel French, 1991.
  • Zoyka's apartment (revised: adaptation of 1929 and 1935 texts), translated and adapted by Nicholas Saunders and Frank Dwyer, Smith and Kraus, 1996.
  • Six plays, translated by William Powell, Michael Glenny and Michael Earley, introduced by Lesley Milne, London: Methuen Drama, 1991, 1994 (includes bibliographical references). Contains The White Guard, Madame Zoyka, Flight, Moliere, Adam and Eve, The Last Days.
[edit]

Bibliography in Russian

Image:Bulgakovgrave.jpg

In square brackets the translitteration and the literal translation of the title.

Novels and short stories

  • Записки на манжетах [Zapiski na manzetach, "Notes on cuffs"], short stories, "Nakanune", Moscow: 1922; "Vozrozdenie", Moscow: 1923; "Rossija", Moscow: 1923; "Zvezda Vostoka", Taskent: 1973, n. 3. Translated in English with the title Notes on Cuffs.
  • Белая гвардия [Belaja Gvardija, "The white guard"], novel, "Rossija", Moscow: 1924-1925 [incomplete]; first complete edition in Izbrannaia proza ["Chosen Prose"], 1966. Translated with the title The White Guard.
  • Дьяволиада [D'javoljada], short novel, "Al'manach 'Nedra'", IV, 1924; "Nedra", Moscow: 1926; London: 1970.
  • Собачье сердце ["Heart of a Dog"], 1925; edited with introduction and commentary by Avril Pyman, London: Bristol Classical, 1994 (Russian text with English critical apparatus). Translated with the title Heart of a Dog.
  • Роковые яйца [Rokovye Jajca, "Fatal eggs"], novel, "Al'manach 'Nedra'", VI, 1925; London: 1970. Translated with the title Fatal Eggs.
  • Похождения Чичикова ["Chichikov's adventures"], 1925.
  • Записки юного врача [Zapiski Junogo Vraca, "Notes of a country doctor"], short stories, "Krasnaja Panorama" and "Medicinskij Rabotnik", Moscow: 1925-1926.
  • [Rasskazy], Mosca: 1926.
  • Морфий [Morfij, "Morfine"], 1926.
  • Жизнь господина де Мольера ["Life of Monsieur de Molière"], 1936.
  • Театральный роман ["Theatrical novel"], short novel written between 1936 and 1939, "Novij Mir" 1965. Translated with the title Black Snow, or the Theatrical Novel.
  • Мастер и Маргарита [Master i Margarita, "The Master and Margarita"], novel written between 1929 and 1939, first edition partially censored in "Moskva", Moscow, n. 11, 1966 and n. 1, 1967; first complete edition in Russian, Frankfurt: 1969. Translated with the title The Master and Margarita.

Theater

  • Зойкина квартира, [Zoikina kvartira, "Zoya's apartment"], 1925. Contemporary satire.
  • Дни Турбиных [Dni Turbinych, "Days of the Turbins"], first representation October 5, 1926. Published Moscow: 1965; Letchworth (UK): 1970. Based on the novel The White Guard, describes one family's survival in Kiev during the Russian Civil War.
  • Бег [Beg, "Flight"], 1926-1928. Translated with the title Flight. Satirizing the flight of White emigrants to the West.
  • Кабала святош [Kabala sviatos, "The cabal of the hypocrites"], 1929. Moliere's relations with Louis XIV's court.
  • Адам и Ева [Adam i Eva, "Adamo ed Eva"], 1931.
  • Блаженство ["Beatitudine"], 1933-1934.
  • Иван Васильевич ["Ivan Vasil’evič"], 1934-1935. Ivan the Terrible brought by the Time Machine to a crowded apartment in the 1930s Moscow, screen version: Ivan Vasilievich: back to the future.
  • Дон Кихот [Don Kisot, "Don Chisciotte"], 1937-1938.
  • Пушкин [Puskin, "Puškin"] or Последние дни [Poslednie Dni, "The last days"], 1940. The last days of the great Russian poet.
  • Батум [Batum, "Batum"]. Translated as Batum. Stalin's early years in Batumi.
  • ["L'isola purpurea"]
  • ["La corona rossa"]

Anthologies, collected works and letters

  • [P'esy, "Comedies"], Moscow: 1962.
  • [Dramy i Komedii, "Dramas and comedies"], Moscow: 1965.
  • [Izbrannaja proza, "Chosen Prose"], Moscow: 1966.
  • [Romany, "Novels"], Moscow: 1974.
  • [Pis'ma, "Letters"], Moscow: Sovremennik, 1989.
[edit]

External links

bg:Михаил Булгаков cs:Michail Bulgakov de:Michail Afanasjewitsch Bulgakow et:Mihhail Bulgakov el:Μιχαήλ Μπουλγκάκοφ es:Mijaíl Bulgákov eo:Miĥail Bulgakov fr:Mikhaïl Boulgakov hr:Mihail Bulgakov it:Michail Bulgakov he:מיכאיל בולגקוב lv:Mihails Bulgakovs lt:Michailas Bulgakovas hu:Mihail Afanaszjevics Bulgakov nl:Michail Boelgakov no:Mikhail Bulgakov pl:Michaił Bułhakow ro:Mihail Bulgakov ru:Булгаков, Михаил Афанасьевич sk:Michail Bulgakov sr:Михаил Булгаков fi:Mihail Bulgakov sv:Michail Bulgakov

Retrieved from "http://www.netipedia.com/index.php/Mikhail_Bulgakov"