Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков; – 10 March 1940) was a Russian, later Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, published posthumously, which has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. He is also known for his novel The White Guard; his plays Ivan Vasilievich, Flight (also called The Run), and The Days of the Turbins; and other works of the 1920s and 1930s. He wrote mostly about the horrors of the Russian Civil War and about the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil War. Some of his works (Flight, all his works between the years 1922 and 1926, and others) were banned by the Soviet government, and personally by Joseph Stalin, after it was decided by them that they "glorified emigration and White generals". On the other hand, Stalin loved The Days of the Turbins (also called The Turbin Brothers) very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times. Mikhail Bulgakov was born on in Kiev, Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, into a Russian family. He was one of the seven children (the oldest of three brothers) of Afanasiy Bulgakov - a state councilor, a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, as well as a prominent Russian Orthodox essayist, thinker and translator of religious texts. His mother was Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakova (nee Pokrovskaya), a former teacher. Both of his grandfathers were clergymen in the Russian Orthodox Church. Afanasiy Bulgakov was born in Bryansk Oblast, Russia, where his father was a priest, and he moved to Kiev to study in the academy. Varvara Bulgakova was born in Karachev, Russia. According to Edythe C. Haber, in his "autobiographical remarks" Bulgakov stated that she was a descendant of Tartar hordes, which supposedly influenced some of his works. From childhood, Bulgakov was drawn to theater. At home, he wrote comedies, which his brothers and sisters acted out.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (13)

Russians

The Russians (russkiye) are an East Slavic ethnic group indigenous to Eastern Europe, who share a common Russian ancestry, culture, and history. Russian, the most spoken Slavic language, is the shared mother tongue of the Russians; Orthodox Christianity has been their majority religion since the formation of a Russian identity in the Middle Ages. They are the largest Slavic nation and the largest European nation. The Russians were formed from East Slavic tribes, and their cultural ancestry is based in Kievan Rus'.

Kyiv

Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2,952,301, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyiv is an important industrial, scientific, educational, and cultural center in Eastern Europe. It is home to many high-tech industries, higher education institutions, and historical landmarks. The city has an extensive system of public transport and infrastructure, including the Kyiv Metro.

Russian literature

Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were composed. By the Age of Enlightenment, literature had grown in importance, and from the early 1830s, Russian literature underwent an astounding golden age in poetry, prose and drama. Romanticism permitted a flowering of poetic talent: Vasily Zhukovsky and later his protégé Alexander Pushkin came to the fore.