Mikhail Bulgakov (May 3 (15),1891, Kiev, Russian Empire - March 10, 1940, Moscow, USSR) - Russian cult writer and playwright. Author of novels, collections of short stories, anecdotes, and about two dozen plays.
Mikhail Bulgakov was a student of the First Kiev Alexandrov Gymnasium from 1901 till 1909.
In 1909 Bulgakov entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University.
After the beginning of First World War, Bulgakov took part in organizing a military hospital with the Public Chamber of Saratov and later served there as a doctor.
In 1915 Mikhail Bulgakov married Tatiana Lappa, daughter of the Director of the Treasury chamber.
In the summer of 1915, Bulgakov applied for a military doctor position in the Navy, but was declared unfit for military service for health reasons.
From 1915 to 1916 Bulgakov served as a physician at hospitals in Pechersk, Kamenetz-Podolsk, and Chernovits and was granted a medical diploma with honors.
In 1917 after performing a tracheotomy and an anti-diphtheria vaccine injection on a child patient, Bulgakov started using morphine due to severe itching and pain.
In September 1917 Bulgakov was transferred to the hospital in
Vyazma, near Smolensk where he headed the Venereology and Infectious Diseases Department. The same year Bulgakov began work on an autobiographical cycle of stories about medical practice in St. Nicholas hospital. In December 1917 he first came to Moscow, staying with his uncle, a well-known Moscow physician, Pokrovsky (the basis for Professor Preobrazhensky from the novel Heart of a Dog).
In 1918 Bulgakov was dismissed from military service due to illness and returned to Kiev. There he overcame his morphine addiction and opened a private practice. In early February 1919, as an army doctor, he was mobilized to the Ukranian People’s Army and later assigned to the Northern Caucasus. Due to his illness, Bulgakov abandoned his career as a doctor. From this moment he began to write professionally, working as a journalist in local newspapers (“Caucasian Newspaper”, “Caucasus”). Bulgakov was first published in November 1919 in the newspaper “Grozny” (the serial The Future was published under the initials M.B.).
He moved to Moscow in 1921. There he served as Secretary of the People's Commissariat at Glavpolitprosvet (Central Committee of the Republic for Political Education). From 1921 to 1926 he published his essays in the Moscow edition of Berlin’s newspaper "Yesterday", collaborated with the newspapers "Whistle", "Work", the journal "Medical Practice" (where he published his famous Notes of a Young Doctor), "Russian", and "Revival" (which published Notes on the Cuffs and the novel White Guard). The first collection of satirical stories Diaboliad (1925) caused controversy in the press. In 1926, the Moscow Art Theater staged Bulgakov's play Days of the Turbins, from 1926 to 1929 Bulgakov’s play
Zoyka’s apartment was staged in the Studio of Vakhtangov Theater, and in 1928 and 1929 rehearsals of The Purple Island started in the Moscow Chamber Theatre. Literary critics of the late 20s negatively assessed Bulgakov’s work. By 1930 his works were not printed and his plays were removed from the repertoire of the theaters. In 1930 he worked at the Central Theatre of working youth (TRAM). From 1930 to 1936 Bulgakov worked as an assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater, which in 1932 staged Dead souls by Gogol. From 1936 Bulgakov worked as a librettist and translator at the Bolshoi theatre. He died on March 10, 1940 in Moscow and was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.
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