1891-1940 Mikhail Afanas'evich Bulgakov Russian Playwright, novelist and short story writer.
Born in Kiev. In school, his favorite authors became Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Aleksandr Pushkin, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Charles Dickens. He was actually educated as a Physician and worked in that capacity for some years. He was married to Elena Sergeevna in 1932.
Part of a small group of writers who didn't emigrate after the Bolshevik Revolution yet chose not to join as active participants. He suffered extensive censorship as a result of failing to toe the party line. Novel: The White Guard 1925 published in magazine installments. It caused controversy since it included no "Communist Heros" but instead portrayed the Russian gentry intelligensia and White Officers to the revolution sweeping the country. White Guard was dramatized by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1926. It was a huge success, drawing the censors. It was banned, then unbanned for 1 year.
He continued to write, but one by one everything he did was denounced by the party and banned. He wrote a courageous letter to Stalin pleading to emmigrate. Stalin called him on the phone, asked him to work in the Moscow Art Theatre which he did for the next decade, continuing to write at night. From 1928 till his death in 1940 he worked on his Masterpiece: The Master and Margarita. Bulgakov stands as a giant of Russian Literature alongside his idol Aleksandr Pushkin.
He wrote:
Falls under the categories of Books that will induce a mindfuck and Books you loan out to expand friends' minds.
And remember, "Trousers don't suit cats!"
Sources:
http://www.varsity.cam.ac.uk/8025694E0073CFEB/Pages/22112001_TheMasterand.html
http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/bulgaklc.html
Ginsberg, Mirra, "Translator's Notes for The Master and Margarita", Grove Press, New York, 1995
http://literatura.kvalitne.cz/bul.htm
http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/bulgaklc.html
Last Updated 05.14.04