Bulgakov's works are the most famous on the list. The best works of Bulgakov: list and brief overview

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov; USSR, Kyiv; 05/03/1891 – 03/10/1940

Bulgakov is one of the classics of modern Russian literature who needs no introduction. Bulgakov's novels were appreciated by both critics and ordinary readers, and the film adaptation of some of his works is the most anticipated not only post-Soviet space, but also in the world. Many of the author's plays are still staged in theaters, and they enjoy enormous success, which puts him in line the most famous playwrights modernity.

Biography of Bulgakov M. A.

Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kyiv in the family of an associate professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy. In 1916 he received a medical diploma and was sent to the Smolensk province. But soon a civil war begins, and Mikhail works as a field doctor in different armies. Until he moved to Moscow in 1921. It was from this period that the work of the prose writer and playwright began.

He actively collaborates with the newspapers Gudok, Rabochiy and various magazines. It is in them that his first stories and plays are published. In 1923, Bulgakov became a member of the All-Russian Writers' Union. But by 1930, the author’s plays fell out of favor with the current government, which is why they stopped appearing on stage. In addition, the author finds himself in a very difficult financial position. That is why Bulgakov writes a letter to the USSR Government with a request to either allow him to work in the theater or to emigrate. This is followed by a personal call from Stalin with an offer to work at the Moscow Art Theater. This makes it possible to do new round in the development of the author. So already in 1934 you can read “The Master and Margarita” in full meeting, in addition, a number of Bulgakov’s novels are being published. But in 1939, Mikhail’s health began to deteriorate sharply and in 1940 the author died. During his life, the author created more than 20 works, many of which gained worldwide fame.

Bulgakov's novels on the Top books website

The author got into our rating thanks to those who like to read “The Master and Margarita”, “ White Guard», « dog's heart"and other books by Mikhail Bulgakov. These works, despite their old age, still excites people’s minds and does not allow them to forget about themselves. At the same time, the popularity of reading Bulgakov’s work does not decrease and is stable. Only truly significant work could achieve such interest. Therefore, it is not at all surprising that the writer’s books are also represented in the ratings of various genres. Moreover, they occupy quite high places.

Mahail Bulgakov list of books

1. Future Prospects
2. Steel throat
3. Notes on cuffs
4. Snowstorm
5. star rash
6. Zoyka's apartment
7. Cabal of saints
8. Baptism by turning
9. Fatal eggs
10. Missing Eye
11. Towel with rooster
12. Egyptian darkness

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov- Russian writer and playwright. Author of novels, stories, collections of stories, feuilletons and about two dozen plays.

Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kyiv in the family of Associate Professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov (1859-1907) and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna (nee Pokrovskaya). In 1909 he graduated from the Kyiv First Gymnasium and entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. In 1916, he received a medical diploma and was sent to work in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, then worked as a doctor in the city of Vyazma. In 1915, Bulgakov entered into his first marriage - with Tatyana Lappa. During the civil war in February 1919, Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor in the Ukrainian army People's Republic, but deserts almost immediately. In the same year he managed to become a doctor of the Red Cross, and then in the White Guard Armed Forces South of Russia. He spends some time with Cossack troops in Chechnya, then in Vladikavkaz. At the end of September 1921, Bulgakov moved to Moscow and began collaborating as a feuilletonist with metropolitan newspapers (Gudok, Rabochiy) and magazines (Medical Worker, Rossiya, Vozrozhdenie). At the same time he publishes individual works in the newspaper "Nakanune", published in Berlin. From 1922 to 1926, more than 120 reports, essays and feuilletons by Bulgakov were published in Gudka. In 1923, Bulgakov joined the All-Russian Writers' Union. In 1924, he met Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, who had recently returned from abroad, and who soon became his new wife. In 1928, Bulgakov travels with Lyubov Evgenievna to the Caucasus, visiting Tiflis, Batum, Cape Verde, Vladikavkaz, Gudermes. This year the premiere of the play “Crimson Island” is taking place in Moscow. Bulgakov conceived the idea of ​​a novel, later called “The Master and Margarita” (a number of researchers of Bulgakov’s work note the influence on him in the conception and writing of this novel by the Austrian writer Gustav Meyrink, in particular, one can talk about the inspiration of such novels of the latter as “Golem”, which Bulgakov read translated by D. Vygodsky, and “Green Face”). The writer also begins work on a play about Moliere (“The Cabal of the Saint”). In 1929, Bulgakov met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, his future third wife. In 1930, Bulgakov's works ceased to be published, and plays were removed from the theater repertoire. The plays "Running", "Zoyka's Apartment", "Crimson Island" are prohibited from being staged; the play "Days of the Turbins" has been removed from the repertoire. In 1930, Bulgakov wrote to his brother Nikolai in Paris about the unfavorable literary and theatrical situation for himself and the difficult financial situation. Then he writes a letter to the USSR Government with a request to determine his fate - either to give him the right to emigrate, or to provide him with the opportunity to work at the Moscow Art Theater. Bulgakov receives a call from Joseph Stalin, who recommends that the playwright apply to enroll him in the Moscow Art Theater. In 1930 Bulgakov worked in Central Theater working youth(TRAM). From 1930 to 1936 - at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director, on whose stage in 1932 he staged Nikolai Gogol's "Dead Souls". Since 1936 he worked in Bolshoi Theater as a librettist and translator. In 1936, the premiere of Bulgakov's "Moliere" took place at the Moscow Art Theater. In 1937, Bulgakov worked on the libretto of “Minin and Pozharsky” and “Peter I”. In 1939, Bulgakov worked on the libretto "Rachel", as well as on a play about Stalin ("Batum"). Contrary to the writer's expectations, the play was banned from publication and production. Bulgakov's health condition is deteriorating sharply. Doctors diagnose him with hypertensive nephrosclerosis. The writer begins to dictate to Elena Sergeevna latest options novel "The Master and Margarita". Since February 1940, friends and relatives have been constantly on duty at the bedside of Bulgakov, who suffers from kidney disease. On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died. On March 11, a civil memorial service took place in the building of the Union of Soviet Writers. Before the funeral service, Moscow sculptor S.D. Merkurov removes the death mask from Bulgakov’s face.

Creation Bulgakov wrote his first story, according to him. in my own words, written in 1919. 1922-1923 - publication of "Notes on Cuffs", a collection published in 1925 satirical stories"Diaboliada". In 1925, the story “Fatal Eggs” and the story “Steel Throat” (the first in the series “Notes of young doctor"). The writer is working on the story "Heart of a Dog", the plays "The White Guard" and "Zoyka's Apartment". In 1926, the play "Days of the Turbins" was staged at the Moscow Art Theater. In 1927, Mikhail Afanasyevich completed the drama "Running". Since 1926 until 1929, Bulgakov's play "Zoyka's Apartment" was staged at the Evgeniy Vakhtangov Studio Theater, and "The Crimson Island" (1928) was staged at the Moscow Chamber Theater in 1928-1929. In 1932, the production of "The Days of the Turbins" was resumed at the Moscow Art Theater In 1934, the first complete version of the novel “The Master and Margarita” was completed, including 37 chapters.

Major works* Future prospects (article in the newspaper "Grozny") (1919) * Throat of Steel (1925) * White Guard (1922-1924) * Notes on cuffs (1923) * Blizzard (1925) * Star Rash (1925) * Zoyka's apartment ( 1925), published in the USSR in 1982 * Cabal of the Holy One (1929) * Baptism by Turning (1925) * Fatal Eggs (1924) * Towel with a Rooster (1925) * The Missing Eye (1925) * Egyptian Darkness (1925) * Heart of a Dog (1925), published in the USSR in 1987 * Morphine (1926) * Treatise on housing. Storybook. (1926) * Running (1926-1928) * Crimson Island (1927) * The Master and Margarita (1928-1940), published in 1966-67. * Bliss (The Dream of Engineer Rhine) (1934) * Ivan Vasilyevich (1936) * Moliere (The Cabal of the Holy One), post. 1936) * Notes of a Dead Man (Theatrical novel) (1936-1937), published in 1966 * Last days ("Pushkin", 1940)

Bulgakov Encyclopedia: http://www.bulgakov.ru/ Moscow state museum Bulgakov: http://www.bulgakovmuseum.ru/ Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

"Evening" invites you to remember the most famous works masters of literature of the 20th century.

"The White Guard" (novel, 1922-1924)

In his first novel, Bulgakov describes the events of the Civil War at the end of 1918. The action of the book takes place in Kyiv, in particular, in the house in which the writer’s family lived at that time. Almost all characters have prototypes - relatives, friends and acquaintances of the Bulgakovs. Despite the fact that the manuscripts of the novel have not survived, fans of the novel have traced the fate of many prototype characters and proved the almost documentary accuracy and reality of the events described by the author.

Part of the book was first published in the magazine "Russia" in 1925. The entire novel was published two years later in France. The opinions of critics were divided - the Soviet side criticized the writer’s glorification of class enemies, the emigrant side criticized loyalty to the authorities.

In 1923 Bulgakov wrote: “I dare to assure you, this will be a novel that will make the sky feel hot...”. The book served as the source for the play "Days of the Turbins" and several film adaptations.

“Diaboliada” (story, 1923)

In “the story of how the twins killed the clerk,” Bulgakov reveals the problem “ little man", who became a victim of the Soviet bureaucratic machine, which in the imagination of clerk Korotkov is associated with devilish power. Unable to cope with the demons of bureaucracy, a fired employee goes crazy. The story was first published in the almanac “Nedra” in 1924.

“Fatal Eggs” (story, 1924)

1928 The brilliant zoologist Vladimir Ipatievich Persikov discovers the amazing phenomenon of the stimulating effect of light from the red part of the spectrum on embryos - organisms begin to develop much faster and reach larger sizes than the “originals”. There is only one drawback - such individuals are distinguished by aggressiveness and the ability to reproduce rapidly.

After a chicken pestilence spreads across the country, one state farm, led by a man named Rokk, decides to use Persikov’s discovery to restore the chicken population. Rokk takes the irradiation chambers from the professor, however, as a result of a mistake, instead of chicken eggs, he gets crocodiles, ostrich and snake eggs. The hatched reptiles continually multiply - sweeping away everything in their path, they move towards Moscow.

The plot of the book echoes the novel written in 1904 H.G. Wells"Food of the Gods", in which scientists invent a powder that causes significant growth in animals and plants. Experiments lead to the appearance in England of giant rats and wasps attacking people, later they are joined by giant plants, chickens and giant people.

According to philologist Boris Sokolov, the prototypes of Professor Persikov could be the famous biologist Alexander Gurvich and the leader of the world proletariat Vladimir Lenin.

In 1995, director Sergei Lomkin made a film of the same name based on the story, in which he used characters from the novel "Master and Margarita"- the cat Behemoth (Roman Madyanov) and Woland himself (Mikhail Kozakov). Performed the role of Professor Persikov brilliantly Oleg Yankovsky.

“Heart of a Dog” (story, 1925)

1924 The outstanding surgeon Philip Filippovich Preobrazhensky achieves fantastic results in the field of practical rejuvenation and conceives an unprecedented experiment - an operation to transplant a human pituitary gland into a dog. The professor uses the stray dog ​​Sharik as a test animal, and the thief Klim Chugunkin, who died in a fight, becomes the organ donor.

Gradually, Sharik's limbs stretch out, his hair falls out, speech and a human appearance appear. Soon Professor Preobrazhensky will have to bitterly regret what he did.

Many Bulgakov scholars are of the opinion that the writer depicted Stalin (Sharikov), Lenin (Preobrazhensky), Trotsky (Bormenthal) and Zinoviev (assistant Zina) in the book. In addition, it is believed that in this story Bulgakov predicted the mass repressions of the 1930s.

In 1926, during a search in Bulgakov’s apartment, manuscripts "Heart of a Dog" were confiscated and returned to the author only after the petition of Maxim Gorky.

In 1976, Italian director Alberto Lattuada made a film of the same name with Max von Sydow in the role of Professor Preobrazhensky, but it was not particularly popular. A completely different fate awaited.

"The Master and Margarita" (novel, 1929-1940)

Satire, farce, fantasy, mysticism, melodrama, parable, myth... sometimes it seems that this book combines all possible and impossible genres.

Satan, who introduced himself as Woland, wanders the world with goals known only to him, stopping from time to time in different cities and villages. During the spring full moon, his journey takes him to Moscow in the 1930s - a place and time where no one believes in Satan or God, denying the existence of Jesus Christ in history.

Everyone who comes into contact with Woland is punished for their inherent sins: bribery, drunkenness, selfishness, greed, indifference, lies, rudeness, etc.

The master who wrote the novel about Pontius Pilate is in madhouse, where harsh criticism from his literary contemporaries led him. His mistress Margarita dreams of only one thing - to find the Master and bring him back. Azazello gives hope for the fulfillment of this dream, but to make it come true, Margarita must provide Woland with one service.

The first edition of the novel contained detailed description will accept a “stranger” (Woland) 15 handwritten pages long. In early editions of the novel, the character's name was Astaroth. In the 1930s, the title of “master” in Soviet journalism and newspapers was firmly assigned to Maxim Gorky.

According to the writer’s widow, Elena Sergeevna, last words Bulgakov about the novel “The Master and Margarita” before his death were: “So that they know... So that they know.”

The Master and Margarita was not published during the author's lifetime. It was first published only in 1966, 26 years after Bulgakov’s death, with banknotes, in an abbreviated magazine version. The novel gained noticeable popularity among the Soviet intelligentsia and, until its official publication (in 1973), was distributed in hand-typed copies. Elena Sergeevna managed to preserve the manuscript of the novel during all these years.

Performances based on the novel, staged by Valery Belyakovich, were extremely popular; films by Andrzej Wajda and Alexander Petrovich and television series by Yuri Kara and were also made.

“Theatrical novel” (“Notes of a Dead Man”) (1936-1937)

An unfinished novel, written on behalf of a certain writer Sergei Leontyevich Maksudov, talks about the theater behind the scenes and the world of writers.

Work on the book began on November 26, 1936. On the first page of the manuscript, Bulgakov indicated two titles: “Notes of a Dead Man” and “Theatrical Novel”, and the first was underlined twice by the author.

Most researchers consider the novel to be Bulgakov's funniest work. It was created with extraordinary ease: in one go, without drafts, outlines or any corrections. Elena Sergeevna recalled that while she was serving dinner upon Mikhail Afanasyevich’s return from the Bolshoi Theater in the evening, he sat down at his desk and wrote several pages, after which he came out to her unusually pleased, rubbing his hands with pleasure.

“Ivan Vasilyevich” (play, 1936)

Engineer Nikolai Timofeev makes a time machine in an apartment in Moscow. When the house manager Bunsha comes to see him, the engineer turns the key in the machine, and the wall between the apartments disappears, revealing the thief Georges Miloslavsky sitting in the apartment of Shpak's neighbor. Timofeev opens a portal to the times of Moscow in the 16th century. Frightened, Ivan the Terrible rushes into the present, and Bunsha and Miloslavsky find themselves in the past.

This story began in 1933, when Bulgakov agreed with the music hall to write a “fun play.” Her first text was called “Bliss” - in it the time machine went into the communist future, and Ivan the Terrible appeared only in an episode.

Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich(May 3 (15), 1891, Kyiv - March 10, 1940, Moscow) - Russian Soviet writer, playwright and theater director. Author of novels, novellas, short stories, feuilletons, plays, dramatizations, film scripts and opera librettos.

Biography and creativity

An outstanding Russian Soviet writer and playwright, also known for works of other genres; one of the most significant authors of Soviet literature, who occupied a special, independent position in it and had an influence on it (mainly posthumous), which is difficult to overestimate.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born on Vozdvizhenskaya Street in Kyiv on May 3 (May 15), 1891. large family(four daughters and three sons) professors church history Kyiv Theological Academy. And he died in Moscow, on the street. Furmanov, March 10, 1940, continuing “as much as I can” to edit the novel “The Master and Margarita” (1928-1940), which absorbed many - inseparable from fate - motives of creativity, growing from the depths of world literature and the Biblical context.

Home for M.A. Bulgakov was Kyiv, here he studied at the First Kyiv Gymnasium (1901-1909), upsetting his mother with attacks of adolescent independence, and then at the medical faculty of Kyiv University (1909-1916). Here he received the title of “doctor with honors” (“Autobiography”, 1924), and earlier, in 1913, he married the young T.N. Lappa. IN parental home The first stories were written. A frequent guest of the Bulgakovs was their maternal grandmother, A.I. Turbine. The death of the mother, spring, May and cherry trees will turn out to be for the Turbins (“White Guard”) symbols of the House, to which there is no return to the revolutionary mudslide, which turned the life of Bulgakov himself into a protracted Holy Week, four days of which (from Holy Wednesday to Holy Saturday, including Easter dawn) are described in The Master and Margarita. The same symbols - the death of heroes, May, cherry blossoms, hope of finding home and peace - will be repeated in its denouement last novel. Woland beckons with the mirage of a lost home, but is only able to deprive the heroes of the Bright Resurrection.

Post-revolutionary Kyiv is a special chronotope in Bulgakov’s work, in which his heroes experience eternal conflicts of love, honor, and duty to the Tsar and the Fatherland. Family and home are a spiritual support that does not exist outside of Kyiv. Outside of it, Bulgakov becomes not so much a seer as an inventor of complete reminiscences (from Pushkin, Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Moliere, “Faust” by Goethe and Gounod, Hoffmann, Andersen, etc.) plots for single heroes, as if who took 15 drops of Ivan Vasilyevich’s homeopathic solution (“Theatrical Romance”), which allowed them not to feel that fate was in a buffoonish guise. Hell teaches you to live in an atmosphere of apocalyptic farce. Supernatural evil paralyzes the will, plunging into willlessness of laughter, morphine or sleep.

Bulgakov began the fight against disease and the “Egyptian darkness” in the souls of people in the summer of 1916, when he graduated from the University of St. Vladimir with an accelerated graduation and worked in front-line Red Cross hospitals on the Southwestern Front. In 1916-1917, exempted from conscription due to illness, Bulgakov was appointed as a doctor at the zemstvo hospital in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, then transferred to Vyazma. Here, in a remote province, he begins to work on “Notes of a Young Doctor,” the very name of which indicates the influence of the unusually popular “Notes of a Doctor” by V.V. Veresaev (1901).

The revolution found Bulgakov in Vyazma, but already at the beginning of 1918, he was traveling through Moscow, where he hoped to free himself from military service and addiction to morphine, to Kyiv. IN hometown Bulgakov will arrive in March 1918 and try to engage in private medical practice and creativity, will witness ten of the fourteen coups (“Kyiv-Gorod”, 1923) - and each new government will try to recruit him for service - he will learn about the execution royal family, and in August 1919, after the capture of Kyiv by General Denikin, he would be mobilized into the White Guard and go to North Caucasus a military doctor, writing a story on the train, published in an undiscovered issue of the newspaper.

Bulgakov’s first publication is considered to be a newspaper article “Future Prospects” (Grozny. 1919 - No. 47. - November), in which there are notes of rejection of the revolution from a monarchical position.

But in 1919, a revolution took place in Bulgakov’s soul: in Vladikavkaz, Denikin’s people abandoned a young writer who came down with typhus, and he decided to cooperate with the new government.

In 1920-1921 Bulgakov works in the Vladikavkaz arts department, gives lectures on Pushkin and Chekhov, writes five plays for local theater. Three of them will be delivered. But then Bulgakov, who until recently had been striving for productions in Moscow, will destroy the manuscripts. Only “Sons of the Mullah,” written in collaboration with Yu.L. Slezkin, will survive. The imperfect must burn. Bulgakov could hardly have been pleased in those days by Woland’s aphorism “manuscripts do not burn” - only contracts with him do not burn, which are destroyed not by fire, but by repentance. Unlike his Master, Bulgakov did not co-write with Woland, although this temptation haunted him. Creativity is always a contract with God or the devil. It either inspires or weighs down the creator. Bulgakov was sometimes burdened by the images he created, for example, Khludov, who committed suicide in the early edition (1933 and 1934) of “Run”. Maksudov, the autobiographical hero of “The Theatrical Novel” (1936-1939), in the light of hellish fire in an electric stove and the reflections of a painfully insightful imagination, is already clearly entering into an agreement with his Woland - with the manager of the theater’s material fund, Gavriil Stepanovich, who called on him to think about the soul.

In the Caucasus, Bulgakov continued to dream of emigration. Further great Exodus intelligentsia from Russia will lose the biblical sound and scale for the writer and - partly under the influence of the emigrant memories of L.E. Belozerskaya-Bulgakova, the writer’s second wife, will turn into a cockroach race. (“Running”, 1926-1937).

IN last days During his stay in the Caucasus, Bulgakov met with O.E. Mandelstam, who apparently influenced his decision to leave for Moscow.

So, at the end of 1921, Bulgakov found himself in the capital. I got settled with the help of N.K. Krupskaya secretary in the Literary Department of the Main Political Education under the People's Commissariat for Education. But this Leto did not last long in NEP Moscow. In search of income, in the hassle of obtaining housing, Bulgakov did not abandon the thought of completing what he started in Vladikavkaz great novel. At a difficult moment, with a letter addressed to Lenin, Bulgakov comes to the People's Commissariat for Education. And again, after Lenin’s death, N.K. helps the young writer. Krupskaya: Bulgakov (with his first wife) receives the right to housing in communal apartment No. 50 in a house on Sadovaya, which opened its doors and morals to him, many times described in stories, feuilletons, “The Master and Margarita.”

Having changed many professions (entertainer, engineer...), in the spring of 1922 Bulgakov began to publish in Rabochy, Rupora, Zheleznodorozhnik, Red Journal for Milestones, and Krasnaya Niva. Becomes a regular feuilletonist for the Gudok newspaper, working on the “fourth page” with V. Kataev, I. Ilf and E. Petrov, I. Babel and Y. Olesha. He writes for the Berlin newspaper “Nakanune” (whose editors Yu.V. Klyuchnikov and Yu.N. Potekhin were among the authors of the collection “Change of Milestones,” which substantiated the rapprochement of emigration with Soviet Russia). On Sunday literary application In 1922, the newspaper published under the editorship of A.N. Tolstoy published “Notes on Cuffs,” “The Adventures of Chichikov,” “The Red Crown,” and “The Cup of Life” by Bulgakov.

Surprisingly sensitive to distortion human nature, Bulgakov in 1923-1925. creates “Diaboliad” (1924) and “Fatal Eggs” (1925), published by N.S. Angarsky in the almanac “Nedra”, “Heart of a Dog” (1925). (The last manuscript, along with the diary, was seized during a search of Bulgakov’s apartment on May 7, 1926 and returned after the efforts of Gorky and E.P. Peshkova, as well as after Bulgakov’s attempt to demonstratively withdraw from the All-Russian Writers’ Union.). E. Zamyatin spoke of the first stories as “fiction, rooted in everyday life.”

A metaphor for the transformation of human material into Soviet Russia was an experiment by Professor Preobrazhensky, who transplanted a human pituitary gland into Sharik. Isn’t it a similar “homunculus” that the Master will have to create? In Bulgakov, monsters are generated by the sleep of the Heart, not the Mind.

Familiar creative maturity Bulgakov’s novel “The White Guard” (1925, 1929). In the Turbins, Bulgakov revives rare heartfelt insight and intuition of good and evil - that spiritual maturity that does not allow Civil War terminate family bonds. In 1926, in collaboration with the Moscow Art Theater, Bulgakov wrote the play “Days of the Turbins” based on the novel, which premiered on October 5, 1926. The play was an audience success and the defeat of critics, especially Rappov, who were afraid of the author’s “anti-Soviet” sentiments. As a result, in 1929 the play was removed from the repertoire. The Mkhat production was resumed only in 1932. The “counter-revolutionary” performance lasted almost a thousand (987) performances. Stalin visited him many times.

At the turn of the 20-30s. The writer was persecuted in the press, his plays were not staged, his works were not published. There was no means of subsistence. In “Letter to the Government” (1930), Bulgakov asks to be given a job or to be allowed to go abroad. On April 18, 1930, Stalin responded with a telephone call: Bulgakov received the position of director of the Moscow Art Theater, where he worked until 1936. The history of relations with the theater is the basis of the unfinished “Theatrical Novel” (1936-1939). On October 2, 1937, Bulgakov writes to Boris Asafiev: “For seven recent years I did sixteen things different genres, and they all died. Such a situation is impossible...”

In addition to "Days of the Turbins", Bulgakov's plays either quickly left the stage ("Zoykina's Apartment", Vakhtangov Theater, 1926; "Crimson Island", Moscow Chamber Theater, 1928; "The Cabal of the Holy One (Molière)", Moscow Art Theater, 1936; dramatization " Dead souls", Moscow Art Theater, 1932), or were rehearsed, but were not brought to the premiere ("Running", 1926-1937; "Adam and Eve", 1931; "Bliss", 1934; a play about the young Stalin "Ba-tum", 1939 ), or were staged only after the death of the author (“Alexander Pushkin”, dramatizations of “Crazy Jourdain”, “War and Peace”, “Don Quixote”). None of Bulgakov's plays or dramatizations were published during his lifetime. Unprinted and commissioned for the series “Life” conceived by Gorky wonderful people"The Life of Monsieur de Moliere" (1932-1933), symbolically divided into 33 chapters and for the first time calling the genius a master.

In 1936-1940 Bulgakov worked as a consulting librettist at the Bolshoi Theater, creating librettos for operas to the music of V.P. Solovyova-Sedova, I.O. Dunaevsky and others.

The relationship between genius and power became one of the central themes in the work of the mature Bulgakov. Being not of this world, the creator acutely feels the hostility of the world law and seeks salvation from the royal Whim - the shadow of the Mysteriousness of God. The union of genius with power turns him into Faust, the struggle with the Prince of this world makes him an imitator of Christ. Bulgakov's genius is always at a crossroads, always between Faust and Christ, and the last appeal to the authority of power ended tragically for Bulgakov. The Moscow Art Theater decided to stage the play “Batum”, which was banned, for Stalin’s 60th anniversary. The press accused Bulgakov of wanting to improve relations with the authorities at any cost. Attacks and slander in the press led to an exacerbation of his illness and death.

There were priests in M. Bulgakov’s family, from whom he received a strange inheritance - the duty to conduct spiritual warfare. “The Master and Margarita” is an encyclopedia of temptations. Having passed through the circles of censorship hell, Bulgakov creates a marginal plot in which the Gospel itself turns out to be the censored text, and the censor is the black theologian who “inspired” L. Tolstoy and Renan.

Not in the novel Gospel Christ. By creating Ha-Notsri, Bulgakov removes the antithesis of Faust and Christ: the hero does not fight the Prince of this world (in the mystical and social sense) and receives no help from him. Yeshua is the transformed autobiographical hero of the Master, whose imagination is paralyzed by Woland, who instills the idea of ​​the messianic dignity of a genius. The master is a genius who has fallen into delusion and not so much likening himself to Christ as the dream of Christ to himself. The temptation to see Christ in oneself (remember Blok, Pasternak and Vysotsky) is great, for the writer is alone in the deliberately ugly socialist world, whose existence is worthy of condemnation even on the basis of the “commandments” of the “censored” Gospel, for in Bulgakov’s Moscow, unlike Yeshua, no one calls his neighbor “ kind person" These words of “gospel” are also a trick of Woland, who creates ever new reasons for condemning humanity. The temptation of geniuses is that they perceive not death for the world, but life in a fallen world as their Golgotha. A few days before his death, Bulgakov crossed himself and his wife several times and said, referring to the novel: “So that they know...”. And today, perhaps, we too will learn on the pages of the novel the hidden truths that helped Bulgakov preserve his Christian heart in the atmosphere of the black mass of the 30s.

"Master and Margarita"

Bulgakov's main work and one of artistic achievements Russian and world literature of the 20th century - the multifaceted philosophical and fantasy novel "The Master and Margarita" - was created in 1929-1940. and before publication was known only to a narrow circle of people close to the author; the uncopied manuscript was miraculously preserved (as if proving the truth of Bulgakov’s: “Manuscripts don’t burn!”), and the first publication of the novel and prompt translations into many languages ​​gave Bulgakov’s work a “worldwide resonance” (M. Chudakova).

The genre of the novel, its unique multi-layered structure, which makes the book accessible to readers with different levels of cultural background (including varying degrees of knowledge in the field of philosophy and religion) - this openness, the fundamental “non-elitism” of Bulgakov’s works was well noticed and substantiated in his works critic A. Zerkalov; numerous allusions, literary, historical and cultural associations scattered throughout the text - caused a wide range of interpretations (from “iconoclast” to “Christian-apologetic” and “mystical”) and controversy that continues to this day.

The novel intertwines two main storylines: a visit by the devil and his retinue to Moscow in the 1930s. and the tragic, perceived as autobiographical, story of the writer, the author of the novel about Jesus Christ; at the same time, the evangelical (more precisely, quasi-evangelical) line is developed more carefully and is artistically close to perfection, while the “Moscow” pages sometimes sin with feuilletonism (although in general they still remain the pinnacle of Russian satirical prose). The novel is permeated by the author’s special concept of humanism, Bulgakov reflects on the limits moral fortitude, about the eternal mystery of love, about the confrontation between the artist (in a broader sense, the messiah) and the philistine. Despite all its complexity, Bulgakov’s novel over the past quarter century has become one of the most popular. And books read in the writer’s homeland (repeated film adaptations in a number of countries were unsuccessful).

Bulgakov also attempted to use fantastic themes and plots in drama, but his fantastic plays did not see the light of day during his lifetime. Anxious thoughts about the impending self-destruction of humanity in a world war form the background of “Adam and Eve”; “a parody of J. Verne” (and in fact - of the entire “socialist experiment”) is represented by the play “The Crimson Island”.

In two of B.'s plays - "Bliss" and "Ivan Vasilyevich" - the technique of time travel is used: in the first (unsuccessful) contemporaries are thrown into the future; in the second - into the past; the second story was filmed (“Ivan Vasilyevich changes his profession”).

In the 1980s B. became one of the most published authors in his homeland; all his products entered the Collection. op. in 5 vols. (1989-1990).

Works of Mikhail Bulgakov

• Future Prospects (1919)
• Kyiv-city (1923)
• White Guard (1922-1924)
• Notes on Cuffs (1923)
• Fatal Eggs (1924)
• Blizzard (included in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• Star Rash (included in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• Zoyka's apartment (1925), published in the USSR in 1982.
• Baptism by turning (included in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• Towel with a Rooster (included in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• The Missing Eye (included in the collection of short stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• Egyptian Darkness (included in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• Heart of a Dog (1925), published in the USSR in 1987.
• Steel Throat (included in the collection of stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”) (1925)
• Days of the Turbins (a play written based on the novel “The White Guard”) (1925), staged in the USSR in 1925, released in mass circulation in 1955.
• Zoyka's apartment (play), staged in 1926.
• Morphine (1926)
• Treatise on Housing. Collected Stories (1926)
• Running (1926-1928)
• Crimson Island (1927)
• The Master and Margarita (1929-1940), published in the USSR in 1966.
• Cabal of the Saint (1929)
• Bliss (Engineer Rhine's Dream) (1934)
• The Last Days (Pushkin) (play in four acts) (1935)
• Ivan Vasilievich (1936)
• Molière (The Cabal of the Holy One) (production) (1936)
• Notes of a Dead Man (Theatrical novel) (1936-1937), published in the USSR in 1965.
• Batum (play about the youth of J.V. Stalin, original title"Shepherd") (1939)

Film adaptations of works

• Pilate and others (The Master and Margarita) (Germany, TV film, 1972, 90 min.) - dir. Andrzej Wajda
• The Master and Margarita (Yugoslavia - Italy, Feature Film, 1972, 95 min.) - dir. Alexander Petrovich
• The Master and Margarita (Poland, television series, 1989, 4 episodes 370 min.) - dir. Maciek Wojtyszko
• Incident in Judea (The Master and Margarita) (UK, TV film, 1991) - dir. Paul Briers
• The Master and Margarita (Russia, feature film, 1994, 240 min./125 min.) - dir. Yuri Kara
• The Master and Margarita (Russia, TV play, 1996, 142 min.) - dir. Sergey Desnitsky
• The Master and Margarita (Hungary, short film, 2005, 26 min.) - dir. Iboya Fekete
• The Master and Margarita (Russia, television series, 2005, 10 episodes, 500 min.) - dir. Vladimir Bortko
• The Master and Margarita, part one, chapter 1 (Israel, animated film, 2010, 33 min.) - dir. Terenty Oslyabya
• Heart of a Dog (Russia, feature film, 1988, 131 min.) - dir. Vladimir Bortko
• Cuore di cane (Heart of a Dog) (Italy, feature film, 1975) - dir. Alberto Lattuada
• Running (based on the works: Running, White Guard, Black Sea) (USSR, feature film, 1970, 196 min.) - dir. Alexander Alov, Vladimir Naumov
• Days of the Turbins (USSR, feature film, 1976, 223 min.) - dir. Vladimir Basov
• Ivan Vasilyevich changes his profession (Ivan Vasilyevich) (USSR, feature film, 1973, 87 min.) - dir. Leonid Gaidai
• Fatal Eggs (Russia, feature film, 1995, 117 min.) - dir. Sergey Lomkin
• Morphine (based on the works: Notes of a Young Doctor, Morphine) (Russia, feature film, 2008, 112 min.) - dir. Alexey Balabanov
• Notes of a Young Doctor (based on the works: Notes of a Young Doctor) (Russia, feature film, 1991, 65 min.) - dir. Mikhail Yakzhen
• Case history (based on the works: “The Red Crown”) (Russia, feature film, 1990, 40 min.) - dir. Alexey Prazdnikov