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MIKHAIL BULGAKOV 1891-1940 (RUSSIAN)
Playwright, biographer, novelist, and short-story writer, Mikhail Bulgakov was above all a satirist whose talent lay in translating the events of his turbulent era into humorous, classical works of literature. Bulgakov's satire, which bears witness to the influence of Nikolai Gogol's Mertvye dushi (1842; Dead Souls), offers a general portrait of urban tensions in Soviet times. Despite its satirical thrust, his work has a highly personal quality, relying extensively on autobiographical material. His story “Molière,” for example, is as much about himself writing under Stalin as it is about Molière writing under Louis XIV. Similarly, the novel Dni Turbinykh (1927-29; The White Guard) and its stage adaptation The Days of the Turbins (1926) reflect Bulgakov's civil war experience.
Bulgakov's first career was in medicine. He graduated from medical school in 1916 and was practicing in Kiev at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. As a member of the intelligentsia, he had espoused radical ideas but quickly became disenchanted with them in the face of the bloody realities of the struggle between revolutionaries and loyalists. He served as a field doctor during the war, witnessing much of its cruelty and barbarism at first hand. After spending two years in the Caucasus with his seriously wounded patients, Bulgakov decided to abandon the medical profession in favor of a career as a writer. However, his medical training, particularly his knowledge of the world under the microscope, informed all of his writing and is most evident in such works as “Notes on the Cuff,” “The Fatal Eggs,” and Sobach'e Serdtse (published posthumously in 1969; The Heart of a Dog).
Bulgakov moved to Moscow in 1921 and began work on The White Guard, an account of the...