Mikhail Bulgakov
1 book analyzed
Biography
Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a physician-turned-playwright and novelist who spent most of his creative life under Soviet censorship. His plays were banned in 1929 after Stalin purged the cultural scene. His letters to Stalin requesting permission to emigrate or work went unanswered — except for one mysterious phone call from Stalin himself, who told him to remain in Moscow and arranged him a position at the Moscow Arts Theatre as a librettist. Bulgakov spent his final decade writing The Master and Margarita in secret, revising it endlessly, dictating final revisions to his wife Elena as he went blind and died of inherited kidney disease at 48. He never expected the book to be published. 'Perhaps someday someone will read it,' he told Elena. She hid the manuscript and submitted it after his death. It appeared in a censored journal serialization in 1966–67, twenty-six years after his death.