Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov
Get an email alert when this author’s titles go on sale!
Follow this author

Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian playwright, novelist, and physician best known for his satirical classic, <i>The Master and Margarita</i>. Born in Kiev in 1891, Bulgakov was drawn to both literature and the theater from his early youth. As a young man, Bulgakov studied to become a doctor and volunteered with the Red Cross during the First World War. He practiced medicine for some years after WWI, and was eventually drafted as an army physician during the Russian Civil War. He contracted typhus and nearly died at his posting, and after a shaky recovery he began his professional transition from physician to playwright and author. From 1919 until his death in 1940, his plays, short stories, and novels enjoyed degrees of critical and popular success, but Bulgakov also endured a great deal of criticism and censorship due to his propensity to mercilessly satirize the ethical and political shortcomings of life in the Soviet Union. His witty, biting, and frequently grotesque storytelling style caught the eye of Joseph Stalin, earning him some degree of political immunity. By the end of the 1920s, however, Bulgakov’ s career had ground to a halt due to a government ban on the performance or publication of his work. Bulgakov’ s relationship with Stalin protected him from arrest and execution, but he could not publish any of his works or stage his plays for the remaining years of his life. Over the next decade, the ailing writer began work on <i>The Master and Margarita</i>, which would be his last major creative effort before his death. A brilliant satire of Soviet society, it was not published until 1966, 26 years after his death. Although he never experienced stable success and renown during his life, Bulgakov’ s body of work is now firmly situated within the pantheon of great 20th century Russian literature and theater.

Books By Mikhail Bulgakov (11 Books)

Diaries & Selected Letters
The White Guard
Black Snow
Diaboliad
Notes on a Cuff
The Fatal Eggs
The Master & Margarita
A Young Doctor's Notebook

Join our community.
Great stories. Great deals. Weekly.

A Dog's Heart
Manuscripts Don't Burn
The Master and Margarita

RELATED POSTS ABOUT MIKHAIL BULGAKOV