![]() ![]() “To struggle against censorship, whatever its nature and whatever the power under which it exists, is my duty as a writer, as are calls for freedom of the press. ‘Heart of a Dog’ was written in 1925 and published only in 1987, while ‘The Life of Monsieur de Molière’ saw the light of day in 1962. The same fate awaited his unfinished masterpiece, ‘Theatrical Novel’, which came out in 1967. His most quintessential novel, ‘The Master and Margarita’, saw the light of day only in 1966, twenty-six years after Bulgakov’s death. Soviet rule proved to be the main reason for the tragedy of Bulgakov’s fate. Mikhail Bulgakov used his plays and novels to roar against the Soviet rule like a thousand lions and he paid a high price for it. “I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession,” John Steinbeck once said. READ MORE: 3 books that made Mikhail Bulgakov want to be a writerīarely half of his works came to be published during his lifetime. ![]() But I ask you: why, when this whole story began, should everybody suddenly start clumping up and down the marble staircase in dirty galoshes and felt boots? Why do we need to keep our galoshes under lock and key? And put a soldier on guard to prevent them from being stolen? Why was the carpet removed from the front staircase? Does Karl Marx forbid people to keep their staircases carpeted?” Bulgakov wrote in ‘Heart of a Dog’. “…Once a social revolution takes place there’s no need to stoke the boiler. Bulgakov openly despised cultural dysfunction inherent in Soviet power. Of the 301 reviews, 298 were utterly hostile and negative and it’s easy to see why. He gathered all newspaper clippings with reviews of his works. In his letter to the government, Bulgakov cited grim statistics. He was the victim of a hate campaign in the Soviet media. In brutal Soviet reality, Bulgakov’s initial successes were ephemeral. Bulgakov made history come alive in his works better than any textbook. Bulgakov proved that clear logic.īulgakov made history come alive in his works better than any textbook.īulgakov’s masterpieces, such as ‘The Master and Margarita’ and ‘The Fatal Eggs’, are much like the Bible of the horrendous Soviet life. You can’t stop it,” American writer William Carlos Williams once said. It became clear that what he really needed was a pen and a piece of paper, not a cold stethoscope and a white coat. Made history come alive better than any textbookīy 1919, Bulgakov, a fully-trained physician, finally realized that his true calling was writing. Written in 1925, Bulgakov’s manuscript was seized by the censors the following year and was published only during Gorbachev’s Perestroika. Both Pushkin’s and Bulgakov’s reconciliation attempts ended in failure, however.īulgakov described the ideological disagreements between the Bolsheviks and the Russian intelligentsia in his Kafkaesque tour de force, ‘Heart of A Dog’. He attempted to find a common language with the Soviet authorities through a conversation with Joseph Stalin (who saw Bulgakov’s iconic play ‘Days of the Turbin’ at the Moscow Art Theater at least 15 times!) Just like Alexander Pushkin was looking for a common language through a conversation with Tsar Nicholas I in 1826, Bulgakov also left some room for a compromise. And yet, Bulgakov was looking for a compromise between the two, hoping to somehow enlighten and educate the government. Soviet regime had nothing to do with his sense of values. The more Bulgakov tried to fit into the new, Soviet way of life (where rudeness collided with ignorance), the more he realized that cooperation with the Soviet government ran counter to his convictions and beliefs. READ MORE: Yuri Olesha: The king of metaphors smashed by Stalin’s social realism ![]() pervasive Soviet censorship and Stalin’s socialist realism. ![]() It was a “clash of the titans”: a Russian intellectual of the Chekhovian mentality brought up in a liberal-democratic spirit vs. In the midst of the Civil War, Bulgakov personally witnessed ten coups out of eighteen. The notorious school of life that shaped Bulgakov’s outlook was even more tough, because the time of his maturity coincided with the war and the Russian Revolution. In 1918, Bulgakov returned to his native Kiev and set up a private medical practice. Risking his life in performance of his duties, he was injured several times. When World War I broke out, Bulgakov worked as a doctor on the front line. Both of his mother’s brothers were physicians, and Mikhail Bulgakov chose to follow in their footsteps. ![]()
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