Literary and historical notes of a young technician.

Are you here: Motherhood

Bulgakov Mikhail - the beginning of the Path

In 1909, Mikhail Bulgakov graduated from the First Kyiv

The choice of the profession of a doctor was explained by the fact that both mother's brothers, Nikolai and Mikhail Pokrovsky, were doctors, one in Moscow, the other in Warsaw, both made good money. Mikhail, a therapist, was the doctor of Patriarch Tikhon, Nikolai, a gynecologist, had an excellent practice in Moscow.

Bulgakov studied at the university for 7 years - having been released for health reasons (kidney failure), he filed a report to serve as a doctor in the Navy and, after the refusal of the medical commission, asked to be sent to the hospital as a Red Cross volunteer.

October 31, 1916 - received a diploma of approval "in the degree of a doctor with honors with all the rights and benefits, laws Russian Empire assigned to this degree.

Photo, which in the family was called "Misha-Doctor". 1912

After the outbreak of the First World War, M. Bulgakov worked as a doctor in the frontline zone for several months. Then he was sent to work in the village of Nikolskoye, Smolensk province, after which he worked as a doctor in Vyazma.

Since 1917, M. A. Bulgakov began to use morphine, first with the aim of alleviating allergic reactions to an anti-diphtheria drug, which he took, fearing diphtheria after the operation. Then the morphine intake became regular.

In December 1917, M. A. Bulgakov first came to Moscow. He stayed with his uncle, the famous Moscow gynecologist N. M. Pokrovsky, who became the prototype of Professor Preobrazhensky from the story "Heart of a Dog".

In the spring of 1918, M. A. Bulgakov returned to Kyiv, where he began private practice as a venereologist - at this time he stopped using morphine.

During civil war, in February 1919, M. Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor in the Ukrainian army People's Republic. Then, judging by his recollections, he was mobilized into the White Armed Forces of the South of Russia and was appointed military doctor of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment. In the same year, he managed to work as a doctor of the Red Cross, and then again in the white Armed Forces of the South of Russia. As part of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment, he was in the North Caucasus. Published in newspapers (article "Future Prospects"). During the retreat of the Volunteer Army in early 1920, he was ill with typhus and therefore was forced not to leave the country.

Bulgakov Mikhail - three beloved women in life.

“Find Tasya, I must apologize to her,” the terminally ill man whispered into the ear of his sister, who was bending over him. The wife stood in the corner of the room, struggling to hold back her tears.

Mikhail Bulgakov died hard. It was hard to believe that this tormented man had once been a slender blue-eyed young man who later became a great writer. A lot happened in Bulgakov's life - there were dizzying ups and a time of lack of money, he was loved by dazzling beauties, he was familiar with many prominent people that time. But before his death, he remembered only about his first love - about the woman with whom he did not treat in the best way and whom he wanted to atone for - about Tatyana Nikolaevna Lappa.

Family test

…SUMMER in Kyiv. Beautiful couples are walking along the embankment, carved chestnut leaves are swaying, the air is filled with some unknown, but very pleasant aromas, and after provincial Saratov it seems that you got to a fabulous ball. This is how 16-year-old Tatyana Lappa remembered her visit to her Kyiv aunt in 1908. “I will introduce you to a boy, he will show you the city,” the aunt said to her young niece.

Tanya and Mikhail were perfect for each other - they were the same age, both from good families(Tatyana's father was the manager of the Saratov State Chamber, and Mikhail was from the family of a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy), so it is not surprising that tender feelings quickly flared up between young people.

When the holidays ended and Tanya went back to Saratov, the lovers continued to correspond and maintain relationships, much to the displeasure of their families. Parents could be understood - Bulgakov's mother was alarmed by the fact that her son had abandoned his studies at the university, and Tatyana's parents really did not like the telegram sent by Bulgakov's friend. “Telegraph deception arrival. Misha is shooting himself, ”the telegram that came to the Lapp house appeared in a telegram after her parents did not let Tatiana go to Kyiv for the holidays.

But, as usual, the obstacles only warmed up the feelings of the lovers, and already in 1911, Bulgakov went to Saratov to get acquainted with his future father-in-law and mother-in-law. In 1913, the parents finally came to terms with the wishes of the children (by that time Tatyana had already become pregnant and had an abortion) and gave their consent to the marriage.

They stood in front of the altar, beautiful and happy. And neither of them could feel the seriousness of the moment - both were constantly drawn to laugh. “How they fit together in the carelessness of nature!” - Bulgakov's sister Vera once said about young lovers, and I must say that at that moment it was the true truth. However, over time, there was no trace of the former carelessness.

Trial by war

glory test

For the sake of Lyubov Belozerskaya, Bulgakov destroyed the marriage with Tatyana Lappa

In the fall of 1921, the couple moved to Moscow. A fierce struggle for survival began. Bulgakov wrote The White Guard at night, Tatyana sat nearby, regularly serving her husband basins of hot water to warm her icy hands. Efforts were not in vain - in a few years, Bulgakov the writer comes into fashion. But family life has cracked. Tatyana was not too interested in her husband's literary research and, as a writer's wife, seemed too inconspicuous. Bulgakov, although he assured Tatyana that he would never leave her, warned: “If you meet me on the street with a lady, I will pretend that I don’t know you.” At that time, Bulgakov actively flirted with fans.

But Bulgakov never kept his promise never to leave Tatyana. 11 years after the wedding, he offered her a divorce. Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya, a 29-year-old lady with rich biography recently arrived from overseas. She had just separated from one husband, she was going to marry another, but it did not work out. So the romance with Bulgakov came in very handy. And Bulgakov liked her sophistication, love of literature, sharp tongue and secular gloss. At first, Mikhail offered Tatyana to settle in their apartment together (the third, of course, was to be Belozerskaya), but, having met a stubborn refusal, he packed his things and left.

About selling your soul

It is known that Bulgakov often went to the Bolshoi Theater to listen to Faust. This opera always cheered him up. The image of Faust himself was especially close to him.

But one day Bulgakov returned from the theater gloomy, in a state of severe depression. This was connected with the work on which the writer had recently begun to work - the play "Batum". Agreeing to write a play about Stalin, Bulgakov recognized himself in the image of Faust, who sold his soul to the devil.

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missing character

In 1937, on the anniversary of the death of A. S. Pushkin, several authors presented plays dedicated to the poet. Among them was the play by M. A. Bulgakov "Alexander Pushkin", which was distinguished from the works of other authors by the absence of one character. Bulgakov believed that the appearance of this actor on the stage will be vulgar and tasteless. The missing character was Alexander Sergeevich himself.

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Treasure of Mikhail Bulgakov

As you know, in the novel white guard"Bulgakov quite accurately described the house in which he lived in Kyiv. And the owners of this house, for one detail of the description, disliked the writer very strongly, since it brought direct damage to the structure. The fact is that the owners broke all the walls, trying to find the treasure described in the novel, and, of course, found nothing.

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Few people know that the novel "The Master and Margarita" was dedicated to the beloved writer Elena Sergeevna Nurenberg.

It was his last love and the strongest, it brought a lot of suffering and happiness to both. By the time they met, they already had families that had to be destroyed in order to unite their destinies forever by marriage.

Bulgakov began writing The Master and Margarita in 1929, and seven years earlier he had been presented with Alexander Chayanov's book Venediktov, or Memorable Events of My Life.

Its main characters were Satan and a student named Bulgakov, who fights with him for the soul of his beloved woman, and in the end the lovers are united. According to the writer's wife, Lyubov Belozerskaya, Chayanov's story served as a creative impetus for writing the novel The Master and Margarita.

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History of Woland

Woland Bulgakov got his name from Goethe's Mephistopheles. In the poem "Faust" it sounds

only one

once when Mephistopheles asks the evil spirit to part and give him the way: "Nobleman Woland is coming!" In ancient German literature, the devil was called by another name - Faland. It also appears in The Master and Margarita, when the attendants of the variety show cannot remember the magician's name: "...Maybe Faland?"

The first edition of the work contained detailed description(15 handwritten pages) will accept Woland when he first appears under the guise of a "stranger". This description is now almost completely lost. In addition, in the early edition of Woland, the name was Astaroth (one of the highest ranking demons of hell, according to Western demonology). Later, Bulgakov replaced him, apparently because this image could not be identical to Satan.

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"Heart of a Dog" and the Russian Revolution

Traditionally, the story "Heart of a Dog" is interpreted in only one political vein: Sharikov is an allegory of the lumpen proletariat, which unexpectedly received many rights and freedoms, but quickly revealed selfishness and a desire to destroy its own kind. However, there is another interpretation, as if this story was a political satire on the leadership of the state in the mid-1920s.

In particular, that Sharikov-Chugunkin is Stalin (both have an "iron" second surname), prof. Preobrazhensky is Lenin (who transformed the country), his assistant Dr. Bormental, who is constantly in conflict with Sharikov, is Trotsky (Bronstein), Shvonder is Kamenev, assistant Zina is Zinoviev, Daria is Dzerzhinsky, etc.

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Prototype Behemoth

Woland's famous assistant had a real prototype, only in life he was not a cat at all, but a dog - Mikhail Afanasyevich's black dog named Behemoth. This dog was very smart. Once when Bulgakov was celebrating with his wife New Year, after the chiming clock, his dog barked 12 times, although no one taught her this.

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Bulgakov Mikhail - family and childhood.

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov - the world literary genius, was also a great doctor, a master of his craft. He never cheated and was true to his humanistic ideals.

Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 3 (15), 1891 in the family of an associate professor (since 1902 - professor) of the Kyiv Theological Academy Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov (1859-1907) and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna (nee - Pokrovskaya) (1869-1922) on Vozdvizhenskaya Street , 28 in Kyiv.

The writer's father, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, was indeed a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy. But he received the title of ordinary professor in 1906, shortly before his early death. And then, in the year of the birth of his first son, he was a young assistant professor of the academy, a man of great talent and the same great ability to work.

He knew languages - both ancient and new. He spoke English, which was not included in the programs of theological seminaries and theological academies. He had a lively, light style, he wrote a lot and with enthusiasm.

Associate professor and then professor of the history of Western faiths, he was especially fond of Anglicanism, perhaps because Anglicanism - with its historical opposition to Catholicism - was considered akin to Orthodoxy. This gave A. I. Bulgakov the opportunity not to denounce, but to study the history of the English church. One of his articles was translated in England and met with friendly responses there, he was proud of it.

In the obituaries for his death, his colleagues at the theological academy did not forget to mention that the deceased was a man of "strong faith." He was a decent man and very demanding of himself, and since he served in the theological academy, he was, of course, a believer. But I chose spiritual education not at the behest of my heart. He, who came from a provincial and large family of a priest, moreover, a priest of one of the poorest in Russia, the Oryol province, had no other ways to education, like his brothers.

The children of the clergy could receive spiritual education free of charge. Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov graduated from the Theological Seminary in Orel brilliantly, was not recommended, but "intended" for further education in the theological academy, in connection with which he signed the following binding document:

“I, the undersigned, a student of the Oryol Theological Seminary, Afanasy Bulgakov, destined by the board of the seminary to be sent to the Kyiv Theological Academy, gave this signature to the board of the aforementioned seminary that upon arrival at the academy I undertake not to refuse admission to it, but upon completion of the course - from entering the spiritual-school service. After that, he received the “permit and per diem allowance for travel, as well as for acquiring underwear and shoes,” which were quite necessary for him.

He also graduated brilliantly from the Theological Academy in Kyiv. On the back of his diploma, the following - partly typographic, partly handwritten - text: “The pupil named in this document from August 15, 1881 to August 15, 1885 was in the academy on state support, for which he ... is obliged to serve in the spiritual and educational department for six years ... and in case of withdrawal from this department ... must return the amount used for its maintenance ... ”- a three-digit amount is entered.

He brilliantly defended his master's thesis ("Essays on the History of Methodism", Kyiv, 1886), receiving the title of associate professor.

The career of a teacher at the Theological Academy - Associate Professor, Extraordinary, then Ordinary Professor - was an honorary one. But he did not want this career for his sons and was determined to give his children a secular education.

In 1890, A. I. Bulgakov married a young teacher of the Karachevskaya progymnasium, the daughter of an archpriest, Varvara Mikhailovna Pokrovskaya.

It is difficult to say whether her father, another grandfather of the writer, archpriest of the Kazan Church in the city of Karachev (the same Oryol province) Mikhail Vasilyevich Pokrovsky, had more money, or he was simply more educated, younger, more promising - he gave his children a secular education.

Judging by the fact that Varvara Mikhailovna, at the age of twenty, was a “teacher and overseer” of a women’s gymnasium (which her position was proudly noted in her marriage certificate by the archpriest, who personally married his daughter with an associate professor of the Kyiv Academy), most likely, she graduated from the gymnasium and, maybe to be the eighth, additional, "pedagogical" class, which gave the title of teacher. For her generation and for her environment, she was a woman of extraordinary education. Her two brothers - Mikhail and Nikolai - studied at the university and became doctors.

The Bulgakovs' children - seven, almost the same age - grew up one after another, strong boys and beautiful, confident girls: Mikhail (1891-1940), Vera (1892-1972), Nadezhda (1893-1971), Varvara (1895-1954), Nikolay (1898-1966), Ivan (1900-1969) and Elena (1902-1954).

The Bulgakov family at the dacha. Sitting from left to right: Vanya, D.I. Bogdazhevsky, V.M. Bulgakov, A.I. Bulgakov, Lelya. Standing: Vera, Unknown, Varya, Misha, Nadia. Bucha, 1906

In the late 1920s, Mikhail Bulgakov told P. S. Popov: “... The image of a lamp with a green shade. This is a very important image for me. It arose from childhood impressions - the image of my father writing at the table. I think the lamp under the green shade on my father's desk often burned past midnight ...

The world of the Bulgakov family was strong and joyful. And acquaintances were very fond of visiting this house, and relatives - to visit. The joyful, even festive atmosphere of the family was made by the mother.

“Mom, bright queen,” her eldest son called her. Fair-haired, with very bright (like her son's) eyes, pleasantly plump after seven births and at the same time very mobile, lively (according to her daughter Nadezhda, Varvara Mikhailovna, already a widow, willingly played tennis with her almost adult children), she she ruled her little kingdom perfectly, a benevolent, adored, kind queen with a soft smile and an unusually strong, even domineering character.

Mikhail Bulgakov is a Russian writer, playwright, director and actor. His works have become classics of Russian literature.

World fame brought him the novel "The Master and Margarita", which was repeatedly filmed in many countries.

When Bulgakov was at the height of his popularity, the Soviet government forbade the stage production of his plays and the publication of his works.

Bulgakov in his youth

After receiving the diploma, Bulgakov filed a petition to pass military service in the Navy, as a doctor.

However, he failed to pass the medical examination. As a result, he asked to be sent to the Red Cross to work in a hospital.

At the height of the First World War (1914-1918), he treated soldiers near the frontline.

After a couple of years, he returned to Kyiv, where he began working as a venereologist.

Interestingly, during this period of his biography, he began to use morphine, which helped him get rid of the pain caused by taking the anti-diphtheria drug.

As a result, throughout his subsequent life, Bulgakov will be painfully dependent on this drug.

Creative activity

In the early 20s, Mikhail Afanasevich arrived in. There he begins to write various feuilletons, and soon takes on plays.

Later, he becomes a theater director of the Moscow Art Theater and the Central Theater of Working Youth.

Bulgakov's first work was the poem "The Adventures of Chichikov", which he wrote at the age of 31. Then several more stories came out from under his pen.

After that, he writes a fantastic story " Fatal eggs”, which was positively received by critics and aroused great interest among readers.

dog's heart

In 1925, Bulgakov published the book "Heart of a Dog", in which the ideas of the "Russian revolution" and the "awakening" of the social consciousness of the proletariat are masterfully intertwined.

According to literary critics, Bulgakov's story is a political satire, where each character is the prototype of one or another political figure.

The Master and Margarita

Having received recognition and popularity in society, Bulgakov set about writing the main novel in his biography - The Master and Margarita.

He wrote it for 12 years, until his death. An interesting fact is that the book was published only in the 60s, and even then not completely.

In its final form, it was published in 1990, a year before.

It is worth noting that many of Bulgakov's works were published only after his death, since they were not censored.

Bullying Bulgakov

By 1930, the writer began to be subjected to increasing persecution by Soviet officials.

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Andreevsky Spusk is one of the most picturesque streets in Kyiv, especially if you go from above - from the lovely, as if floating into the sky, St. Andrew's Church, which the people of Kiev traditionally call the cathedral, to Podol.

The street winds, trying to moderate its steepness, sandwiched between the hills emerging from the left and right. On the left, it is crowded by the Frolovskaya Mountain, at the very top of which, at the beginning of the century, the small, elegant church of the Frolov Monastery stood white; on the right stands a shaggy, camel-like, “steepest mountain”, under which nestled, separated from the mountain by a small courtyard, house number 13, the famous “house of the Turbins”. From above, from St. Andrew's Cathedral, house number 13 is not visible. It opens suddenly when you approach it.

The pavement of Andreevsky Descent, as in the beginning of the century, is paved with large uneven cobblestones. Otherwise it is impossible: the asphalt will turn this sloping road into a skating rink. But the little yellow Kyiv brick, with which the sidewalks were once paved here (the brick was laid edgewise, and its narrow blocks looked like cleanly washed parquet), has long been removed. Instead, the asphalt flows and humps. Of the once numerous steps in the brick pavement, which smoothed out the steepness, few have survived. At house number 13, three steps of the sidewalk have been preserved.

Kievans are sociable and hospitable. Residents of Andreevsky Descent love their old street(it is included in the line of the architectural reserve of the city), and elderly women, still sitting here in the old fashioned way on the porches, and men resting on Sunday, kindly look at the tourists, according to the scheme or with a photograph in their hands, looking for the “Turbins' house”. If you stop in difficulty, they will readily come to your aid: they will show you how to find this house, they will tell you that the writer Mikhail Bulgakov lived in this house, that he spent his childhood here and he was born here. At the same time, they will refer to the most reliable testimonies of old-timers, and sometimes - feeling like really real tour guides - and on literary sources. Tourists enter valuable information into their notebooks, take pictures near the house, from the street and in the yard, against the backdrop of the famous veranda. The most resolute knock on the door, and the patient people of Kiev open...

In the novel "The White Guard" this particular house "under the steepest mountain" is really described. The house was “amazingly built” (“the Turbins’ apartment was on the second floor on the street, and on the first floor in a small, sloping, cozy courtyard”). And in the play "Days of the Turbins" he is meant. Mikhail Bulgakov really lived in this house - in the years of his adolescence and in the first student years(1906-1913), and then during the Civil War (1918-1919). But he was not born here, and his childhood was not spent here.

... From the middle of Andreevsky Spusk (if down from the cathedral, the first street to the left; if up from the “Turbin House” - to the right) runs around Frolovskaya Hill, as old as Andreevsky Spusk, narrow, paved with cobblestones, just as charming and tempting, but Lado Ketskhoveli Street not visited by tourists. Once it was called Vozdvizhenskaya - in honor of the small Church of the Exaltation of the Black Cross, and now standing in the place where Lado Ketskhoveli Street, almost running out to Podol, to the old Kozhemyakskaya Square, suddenly makes a sharp turn to the right, to the Zhitny Bazaar. The church stands at the very corner, at the break of the street, and its green roofs are clearly visible from the trams running towards it, from Glubochitsa, here, on Kozhemyakskaya Square, turning to Podol.

In house number 28 on Vozdvizhenskaya Street (now Lado Ketskhoveli Street, 10), in a house that belonged to the priest of the Exaltation of the Cross Church Matvey Butovsky, from whom the young Bulgakovs rented an apartment, on May 3, according to the old style (and according to the new May 15), 1891 their firstborn, the future writer Mikhail Bulgakov, was born, and was baptized in the Church of the Exaltation of the Black Cross on May 18 (30). (Now the part of the street that goes from the Vozdvizhenskaya Church to the Zhitniy Bazaar is separated, called a lane, has its own numbering, and Lado Ketskhoveli Street starts right from the church - from house number 1. Before the revolution, the numbering was continuous, came from the Zhitniy Bazaar, and the address of the church was: Vozdvizhenskaya, 13.)

Any biography of Mikhail Bulgakov begins with the words: he was born in the family of a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy. It's right. The writer's father, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov, was indeed a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy. But he received the title of ordinary professor in 1906, shortly before his early death. And then, in the year of the birth of his first son, he was a young assistant professor of the academy, a man of great talent and the same great ability to work.

Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov graduated from the Theological Seminary in Orel brilliantly, was not recommended, but “intended” for further study at the Theological Academy, in connection with which he signed the following mandatory document: “I, the undersigned, a student of the Oryol Theological Seminary, Afanasy Bulgakov, intended by the board of the seminary to go to the Kyiv Theological Academy, I gave this subscription to the board of the aforementioned seminary that upon arrival at the academy I undertake not to refuse to enter it, and upon completion of the course, from entering the spiritual school service. After that, he received the “permit and per diem allowance for travel, as well as for acquiring underwear and shoes,” which were quite necessary for him.

He brilliantly defended his master's thesis ("Essays on the History of Methodism", Kyiv, 1886), receiving the title of associate professor.

In 1890, A. I. Bulgakov married a young teacher of the Karachevskaya progymnasium, the daughter of an archpriest, Varvara Mikhailovna Pokrovskaya.

Bulgakov's children - seven, almost the same age - grew up one after another, strong boys and beautiful, confident girls. The salary of the assistant professor of the academy was small, and the father, in parallel with teaching at the academy, had another job all the time: first he taught history at the institute for noble maidens, then, from 1893 until the end of his days, he served in the Kyiv censorship. From the occasional smaller earnings also did not refuse.

The peace of the family was strong and joyful here. And acquaintances were very fond of visiting this house, and relatives - to visit. The joyful, even festive atmosphere of the family was made by the mother.

Music lived in this house. Nadezhda Afanasievna, the writer's sister, told me: “In the evenings, after putting the children to bed, the mother played Chopin on the piano. My father played the violin. He sang, and most often "Our sea is unsociable."

They loved opera very much, especially Faust, which was so popular at the beginning of the century. And symphonic music, summer concerts in the Merchant's Garden over the Dnieper, which were a huge success among the people of Kiev. Chaliapin came to Kyiv almost every spring and certainly sang in Faust...

There were books in the house. Good and wise children's books. Pushkin with his Captain's daughter and Leo Tolstoy. At the age of nine, read with enthusiasm by Bulgakov and perceived by him as adventure novel « Dead Souls". Fenimore Cooper. Then Saltykov-Shchedrin.

And there was also a favorite old children's book about the Saardam carpenter living in the house. A naive book by the now completely forgotten writer P. R. Furman, dedicated to that time in the life of Tsar Peter when Peter worked as a ship's carpenter in the Dutch city of Zaandam (Saardam). In the book was large print and a lot of full-page illustrations, and Peter, “navigator and carpenter”, Peter, the worker on the throne, appeared in it as accessible and kind, cheerful and strong, with hands equally good with carpentry and, if necessary, surgical tools, and with the pen of a statesman, the legendary, fabulous, beautiful Peter, like this: “Everyone looked with special pleasure at a stately, beautiful young man, in whose black, fiery eyes shone intelligence and noble pride. Blundwik himself almost took off his hats, looking at the majestic appearance of his junior worker.

This book was probably read by my mother in her childhood. Or maybe his father, because A. I. Bulgakov was born in 1859, and the book was written in 1849. Then, one after another, growing up, her sisters - Vera, Nadia and Varya - read it. And Kolya, having gone to the preparatory class, probably once brought it from the gymnasium library, and a year later he brought it from the gymnasium Vanya, because Pavel Nikolaevich Bodiansky, a history teacher, was in charge of the library for younger students in the First Gymnasium in Kyiv, he loved his library very much, P. R. Furman often offered history to children and books, but the kids were afraid of him, and if he offered a well-known book, they preferred not to object, but to take it and read it again.

“How often the Saardam Carpenter was read near the blazing tiled square,” Bulgakov writes in The White Guard. The book became a sign of the house, part of an invariably repetitive childhood. Later, in Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The White Guard, the Saardamsky Carpenter will become a symbol of the hearth, eternal, like life itself: will smell of perfume, and women will play the accompaniment of houses, colored with light, because Faust, like the Carpenter of Saardam, is completely immortal.

Childhood and adolescence in the memory of Mikhail Bulgakov forever remained as a serene and carefree world. That's his word: "sorrowless."

“In the spring, the gardens bloomed in white, the Tsar's Garden dressed in green, the sun broke through all the windows, lit fires in them. And the Dnieper! And the sunsets! And the Vydubetsky Monastery on the slopes, the green sea ran down to the multi-colored gentle Dnieper in ledges ... The times when a carefree young generation lived in the gardens of the most beautiful city in our country ”( essay“ Kyiv-Gorod ”, 1923).

“... And spring, spring and roar in the halls, schoolgirls in green aprons on the boulevard, chestnuts and May, and, most importantly, the eternal beacon ahead - the university ...” (“White Guard”).

The reflection of home and childhood painted time in serene tones in the writer's memoirs. But the time was neither calm nor serene.

The Bulgakovs never acquired their own house. They rented an apartment - on Vozdvizhenskaya, then on Pechersk, then again moved closer to the academy, to Kudryavsky Lane (now it is Kudryavskaya Street). From here, steep descents were not far to Glubochitsa and Podil.

House number 9 on Kudryavsky Lane - a small two-story quiet house with a yard and a garden - belonged to Vera Nikolaevna Petrova. The father of Vera Nikolaevna, the godfather of Misha and Varya Bulgakov, Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov, professor of the Theological Academy, came with a somewhat disheveled graying beard and the distant eyes of Don Quixote.

If I wrote a novel about Mikhail Bulgakov's childhood, I could compose a wonderful and long dialogue - Professor Petrov and Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov had something to remember. About the time when one of them was already a professor at the academy, and the other was his favorite student, submitting very great expectations. About the famous arrest in 1884 of the People's Will Pyotr Dashkevich, a fellow student of A. I. Bulgakov. And about the demonstration of students of the first three years of the academy that followed this arrest ... Afanasy Ivanovich was then a third-year student.

The trial of the Kyiv Narodnaya Volya members (“trial of the 12”) was remarkable in that there were no provocateurs, no traitors in the case of Dashkevich and his friends (the investigation relied only on undercover information). Pyotr Dashkevich - he lived in the dormitory of the academy, in the same dormitory with A. I. Bulgakov, where, as it turned out later, it happened that the revolutionaries-Narodnaya Volya hid and spent the night - appeared at the trial as an extremely closed, downright fantastically closed young man, who never talked about anything with his fellow students. And the warehouse of Narodnaya Volya publications in the premises of the theological academy, opened by chance by the ministers after the arrest, arranged, of course, absolutely alone, so that not a single soul of his fellow students and even fellow countrymen knew about it ...

And the demonstration was a more internal, "academic" affair. Professor Petrov, who had just been entrusted with the investigation at that time, showed a strange sluggishness, perhaps stupidity, which even earned the displeasure and remark of his superiors. It was not possible to identify the participants of the demonstration at that time. It was a lovely situation: three-year students participated in the demonstration - 50 or 60 people, but specifically each interviewee assured that he was not there and therefore he could not name a single name of the classmates who participated in the demonstration ...

But Afanasy Ivanovich became even more silent and reserved with age. And the teachers of the Theological Academy, I believe, did not raise these old topics.

There was, however, an idea that could not remain outside the threshold when Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov entered the house.

Professor of the Theological Academy Petrov taught the theory of literature, the history of Russian and foreign literature. He was a historian, ethnographer, author of articles on the museum business. He left a description of ancient manuscripts that were in Kyiv, and a description of collections of ancient icons. But his passion was Ukrainian literature, and he subsequently went down in history precisely by this side of his many-sided scientific activity - as a major Ukrainian literary critic.

He was, like the Bulgakovs, Russian. The son of a rural deacon from the Kostroma province. And his biography was standard - a theological seminary, a theological academy in Kyiv. He first became interested in Ukrainian literature in connection with the history of the Kyiv Academy. The literature of the Middle Ages was, as you know, predominantly ecclesiastical, and the articles by N. I. Petrov, which in 1880 compiled the book Essays on the History of Ukrainian literature XVII I century", originally published in the "Proceedings of the Kyiv Theological Academy".

But in 1884, ill-fated for the authorities of the theological academy, he published the book "Essays on the History of Ukrainian Literature of the 19th Century". The nineteenth century was still in the yard. The book explored the living phenomena of Ukrainian literature, cited biographies of recently deceased writers based on fresh traces and documents, analyzed the works of the living... In the center of the book was an article about Shevchenko, written with great love for the poet. The work of Marko Vovchok was covered in detail. It was an excellent study in terms of the completeness of the coverage of the material, the enthusiasm of the presentation and the independence of the assessments.

The book read: "Printed with the permission of the Council of the Kyiv Theological Academy." And there was a scandal. There was a decree of the Holy Synod - “on the issue that arose as a result of the approval by the council of the Kyiv Theological Academy for publication of the work of the professor of the same academy Petrov under the title “Essays on Ukrainian Literature” - suggesting that henceforth theological academies consider, allow and publish only those works that are directly to their competencies include, namely: theological collections, dissertations and spiritual journals.

N. I. Petrov did not give up his hobby, but again went into the 17th and 18th centuries (in 1911 his book “Essays on the History of Ukrainian Literature of the 17th and 18th Centuries” was published, 532 pages). To appreciate his stubbornness, it is worth remembering that in those years the very words “Ukrainian language” were sought to be expelled from circulation by censorship, replacing them with the expression “Little Russian dialect”, and permission to publish any book in Ukrainian was steadily supplied with the formula: “Maybe allowed for publication under the condition of applying the spelling rules of the Russian language to the Little Russian text.

Apparently, in addition to friendly relations, there was also a spiritual closeness between Professor Petrov and his former student, and then colleague, Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov. This idea arises when you look through the archives of the Kyiv censorship, in which A.I. Bulgakov served, the papers he compiled and come across typos by this very disciplined person.

Here, annotating a Ukrainian book sent to the censorship, he uses an unlawful epithet - "Ukrainian)" - which he immediately crosses out without adding. But, it means that he himself called this people and this language Ukrainian - as the books of N. I. Petrov devoted to Ukrainian literature were called. Or to a very clear official request that came to the censorship: “In what Slavic dialect is the text of the pamphlet written?” - answers unexpectedly out of form: "This sheet is written in the Little Russian language."

Probably, the name of Nikolai Ivanovich Petrov should be associated with the fact that Mikhail Bulgakov, his godson, both knew and loved the element of oral Ukrainian folk speech(this can be seen from the language of the novel The White Guard, from the abundance and infallibility of Ukrainianisms in the novel). The fact, all the more noteworthy, is that in the environment to which the Bulgakovs belonged in their social position, Ukrainian, as a rule, were not interested, did not respect him and, I dare to assure you, did not know.

In the already cited essay “Kyiv-Gorod”, Mikhail Bulgakov wrote: “The legendary times were cut short, and history suddenly and menacingly came ...” But history came gradually. She was there - for the time being inaudible, unrecognized, unconscious. And her breath was already touching the light curtains of childhood.

In the autumn of 1900, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the preparatory class of the Second Kyiv Gymnasium. In 1901 he moved to the first class and at the same time - to the First, "Alexander" gymnasium, named after Alexander I, who once granted this gymnasium a special statute. Bulgakov had to study at the Alexander Gymnasium for eight years and then describe it in The White Guard and introduce it to the stage in the play Days of the Turbins.

The buildings of both gymnasiums are almost nearby - they have been preserved on the former Bibikovsky Boulevard, now Shevchenko Boulevard, house number 14 and house number 10. The university was visible from the windows of both. “And the eternal beacon ahead - the university…”

During all the years of the teaching of the schoolboy Bulgakov, the university either rumbled deafly, or boiled furiously. In January 1901, 183 students, participants in the gathering, were expelled from the university and sent to the soldiers. V. I. Lenin in Iskra called this fact "a slap in the face of Russian public opinion, whose sympathies for the students are very well known to the government."

A green lamp burned at home, the dark figure of the father hunched over the table, and at least once - in June 1900 - the Communist Manifesto lay in the circle of light.

Father, as I said, served in censorship. The institution was called: Office of the Kyiv individual censor. Position: acting censor for foreign censorship. AI's duties included reviewing books in French, German and English that were submitted to the censorship. Including those sent from the gendarme department. The cover letter was stamped: "Secret", sometimes: "Prisoner". This meant that the books were confiscated during the search and arrest.

The "Manifesto" in French translation came to A. I. Bulgakov in precisely this way. With the question whether this “article”, in its content, does not relate to works “provided for” by a certain article of the law, and with a demand to “report” it summary. A. I. outlined the content, perhaps somewhat naively, but conscientiously, it seems to me, even with enthusiasm, noting that the “goal of communism” is “the destruction of the exploitation of one person by another, one people by another”, and that “ the goals of communism can only be achieved by a violent upheaval of everything that exists public order which the united forces of the proletarians of all countries are called upon to overthrow. He did not allow a single attack against the theses of the Manifesto. And about whether the publication falls under the specified article of the law, he evasively answered that this issue could be resolved in court ...

... In house number 9 on Kudryavsky Lane, they lived from 1895 to about 1903. The first date is exact: the police stamp of registration - August 20, 1895 - on the certificate ("residence permit") of A. I. Bulgakov has been preserved. The second date is more approximate - it is taken from the All Kyiv address directory for 1903. But these reference books were usually compiled in advance, at the end of the previous year, their data sometimes became outdated, and, perhaps, at the end of 1903, the Bulgakovs had already moved out of this apartment. And if they moved out, then, one must think, they rented an apartment in the house opposite - in a large, four-story, apartment building No. 10, because reference books for 1904 already indicate their address like this: Kudryavsky lane, 10.

But one way or another, in October 1903, the Bulgakovs lived in Kudryavsky lane, in house number 9 or house number 10, and third-grade schoolboy Mikhail Bulgakov, I believe, could not help but notice that a bacon had appeared in the lane. The lane is deserted, the gates of small houses are usually closed, there are no shops on this street - there is nowhere to hide. And a lone figure looms - in the rain and rare gusts of the first October snow, without losing sight of the only entrance of house number 10 and arousing the curiosity of the maids sticking to the window panes.

Or maybe a twelve-year-old high school student also came across a young woman who was being followed - fast, small in stature, with a little high cheekbones ("... her face is round, her nose, mouth and ears are ordinary ... in a black hat with a break, a black blouse and such the same skirt, ”the filler recorded). She laughed at the spy, patiently leading him after her to a candy store or a bakery, and resolutely disappearing if she had to go on more important business.

In the house number 10 on Kudryavsky Lane in the second half of October 1903, Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova lived, and together with her, before moving to the other end of the city, on Laboratornaya Street, her mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, and sister Anna Ilyinichna lived. Filers in the alley sometimes gathered two or three. This is when Dmitry Ulyanov and his wife came in the evening, bringing their “tail” with them.

The revolution was already overshadowing Russia with its wing, and its fiery reflection fell even on this lane inhabited by professors of the Theological Academy ...

But, by the way, maybe Bulgakov was still small and, busy with his boyish affairs, fights and lessons, games and marks, for the first time revealed to him great literature and great music, knew nothing about the events at the university, nor about his father's official duties and the spy in the alley, perhaps he did not notice. For two weeks a bacon appeared in the morning, and then disappeared without a trace ...

Reliably, like a fortress, stood the majestic building of the gymnasium on the boulevard, guarded by two rows of huge, even the first generation, poplars, and, perhaps, this was his world - the silence of the corridors during classes, the roar of a big break, Latin and literature, mathematics that was not given …

... The director of the Alexander Gymnasium in Bulgakov's time was Yevgeny Adrianovich Bessmertny, “an elderly handsome man with a golden beard, in a brand new uniform tailcoat. He was a gentle, enlightened man, but for some reason he was supposed to be afraid. (This portrait of E. A. Bessmertny was left by Konstantin Paustovsky, who studied at the same gymnasium, in his Tale of Life. And although Paustovsky is not a memoirist, but an artist who relies more readily on his imagination than on memory, it seems to me that the portrait of the director Immortal faithful.)

It was the year 1903… The year 1904… There was a solemn silence in the corridors of the gymnasium, and the ministers had not yet dragged the heap of proclamations found in the gymnasium into the director's office. But the notices from the "school district trustee" were already coming. “The governor of Kyiv… notified me that in Kyiv, a former student of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Alexander Winter, is subject to open police supervision for belonging to the criminal community “Kyiv Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party”…”

Folders for 1903 and 1904 are stuffed full of these notices in the archives of the gymnasium. 1903, August: “The Governor of Kyiv… notified me… to the overt supervision of the police… for belonging to the criminal community ‘Kyiv Committee of the RSDLP’ and distributing underground publications… Ivan Glushchenko… a state crime… Ivan Teterya… belonging to the criminal community ‘Kharkov Committee of the RSDLP’, a former student Kharkov Technological Institute…” 1903, September: “… notified me… in Kyiv… public supervision… worker of the Kyiv railway workshops Ivan Fomin… For belonging to the Kyiv Committee of the RSDLP… For keeping criminal publications…” October… November… December… Year 1904: “ The Governor of Kyiv... notified me... "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class"... "Social Democrats of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania"... List of university students who were fired "for participating in political disturbances" and henceforth "should not be allowed to pedagogical activity, nor re-admitted to the number of students of higher educational institutions. List of those expelled from Novorossiysk University. List of those expelled from the Kharkov Institute of Technology. A list of teachers and teachers of the Tver province, who in the future should not be accepted into the state and public service, but those accepted should be fired ... Lists of gymnasium students of the Taganrog, Kutaisi, Gomel, Vitebsk, Samara gymnasiums, “expelled for their political unreliability without the right to enter any educational institution "... Dozens of sheets... Hundreds of names and surnames...

Proclamations appeared in the corridors of the gymnasium in February 1905. “Comrades! The workers demand for themselves a piece of daily bread, and we, following them, will demand spiritual bread. We will demand the appointment of teachers by vocation, and not artisans ... Let people teach us, not officials ... ”They appeared in all the gymnasiums of the city - leaves palely printed on a hectograph - an echo of the wave of strikes that swept the city.

Workers of factories and printing houses, employees, pharmacists were on strike. During the week, a huge management team headed by the Bolshevik Schlichter was on strike. railways, occupying a four-story office building on Teatralnaya Street, behind the Opera House. The narrow Teatralnaya Street, along which Bulgakov so often hurried to the gymnasium, was crowded with police, and the crowd of students dispersed by the police was noisy.

Then there was spring ("... spring, spring and roar in the halls, schoolgirls in green aprons on the boulevard ..."), the spring of 1905, which ended at the Alexander Gymnasium with a significant event: a recent student of this gymnasium, nineteen-year-old Mikhailov, who was now taking exams for a matriculation certificate as an external student , right in the gymnasium corridor, hit the Latin teacher Kosonogov in the face.

In Paustovsky's Tale of Life, a similar story is described, and the next day, after his desperate act, the schoolboy shoots himself on the stairs of the gymnasium ... Extern Mikhailov did not shoot himself. The next day after the event, he came to the director Bessmertny and apologized for having done this within the walls of his native gymnasium. When he was offered to make a similar apology to Kosonogov at a meeting of the pedagogical council, he replied that he would do it on the only condition - if Kosonogov, who stubbornly failed him in the exams, admits his guilt in the presence of the same pedagogical council. It was 1905...

In the summer, landowners' estates and grain burned in the counties. But the university is silent. The Polytechnic Institute went silent. The students have left for the holidays.

The Bulgakovs left for the dacha (since 1902 they had a dacha in densely forested green Bucha). And then autumn came - the blessed memory of the autumn of 1905 in Kyiv ...

That autumn, classes at the university did not begin: rally after rally went on in the assembly hall of the university. Both the university located on Vladimirskaya, next to the Alexander Gymnasium, and the Polytechnic University located on the workers' Shulyavka became a revolutionary platform for rallies and meetings.

The October all-Russian strike finds an immediate response in Kyiv. Following the Moscow railroad workers, the railroad workers of Kyiv, workers and employees, go on strike. They are joined by the Office of the South-Western Railways, then the Main Workshops. This time the administration building on Teatralnaya is tightly locked, the strikers are organizing their rally at the university. The rally lasts for several days. The strike becomes general, and the university becomes the headquarters of the strike.

Thousands of people crowd on Vladimirskaya in front of the university. The wide open doors enter it, fill the stairs, the assembly hall ... Among them are cautious, all noticing policemen. We know many details of the rallies from the reports of the bailiff of the Lybidsky police station: morning in the building of the University of St. Vladimir began to flock to the public, which by 1 o'clock in the afternoon ... had gathered up to 10 thousand, among them were university students, polytechnic students, gymnasium students, gymnasium students, ... as well as the working mass ... At 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the assembly was opened by the speech of the chairman of the assembly, Schlichter ... The audience applauded, shouted ... "Down with the autocracy", "Long live the Constituent Assembly."

The auditorium is packed to capacity. Schlichter leads the meeting, standing on the table. Speakers appear one after another on the table next to him.

In one of the lecture halls of the university there is a separate rally - general meeting secondary school students. Gymnasium students of the Alexander Gymnasium are present at it (this is known for certain). A decision is made to join the strike. It was, apparently, on October 13 (“It was decided,” the same bailiff reports on October 13, “a resolution on the immediate extension of the strike to all secondary and lower educational institutions”). Schlichter, in his memoirs, says that the appearance of a delegation of students with their decision in the assembly hall caused general rejoicing: the children were hugged and kissed, calls for a new life sounded from everywhere, thousands of hands reached out in rapture to the podium.

That autumn, Mikhail Bulgakov became a fifth grade student. He was fourteen years old. The first four classes of the gymnasium were considered junior, the fifth - eighth were the senior classes, and it was the seniors who were so actively embraced by revolutionary moods.

And at home there was no serenity and silence. The Kyiv Theological Academy stopped classes. Students demanded autonomy, the right to choose deans and the rector, to take part in solving many pressing issues. A furious telegram came from the Holy Synod: “The Synod has decided that if the students do not begin classes by the first of November, they will be dismissed and the academy will be closed until the next academic year.” The students refused to start classes. And even the professors were already beginning to be overwhelmed by crazy plans to change the charter of theological academies, about independence from local spiritual authorities, about the fact that not a spiritual, but a secular person from among the professors of the academy could become the rector of the academy ...

On October 14, the rally at the university began at eight o'clock in the morning. Workers, employees, students came. As the same bailiff noted in his new report, “there were many teenagers”, there were “pupils and pupils of all secondary and lower educational institutions in Kyiv”. From ten o'clock groups of agitators, including high school students, began to leave the university, going to enterprises and educational institutions - to stop work and stop classes. Factories and factories, institutions and educational institutions were closed. Trams stopped, shops and bakeries began to close. Only the post office, telegraph, power plant and city water supply did not join the strike. The troops were there. Martial law has been declared in the city…

Then there was the "Manifesto" on October 17, the shooting of a demonstration on Dumskaya Square, and Black Hundred pogroms. The troops brought into the city "to protect the civilian population" robbed shops in Podil and, by order of the officers, arrested those who tried to defend their lives and property with weapons in their hands. The university was closed. There were arrests in the city...

And the strikes at the gymnasium apparently continued.

Their traces in the archives are very weak. The minutes of the pedagogical council, the main source of information about the internal life of the gymnasium, consistently and, of course, deliberately pass over in silence this entire chain of rallies, gatherings and strikes within the walls of the gymnasium. It must be thought that Director Bessmertny was not only a “soft and enlightened” person, but also prudent and firm enough, who did everything to protect the “hot heads” of his students from what he considered irreparable - from expulsion with a “wolf ticket” . But there is a letter from the school district in the gymnasium archive, addressed to the directors of a number of gymnasiums, including the director of the First Gymnasium, about "the persistent strike of the senior classes of some educational institutions." From the dates in the letter, from the date of the letter itself, it is clear that at least on October 29, the strike of high school students continued and there was no end in sight. Yes, and the protocols of the teachers' council, with all their caution, nevertheless recorded - in connection with the "abnormality of the course of studies" in the first half of the 1905/06 academic year - a catastrophic failure to fulfill the curricula. Breakthroughs in the passage of programs were such that it is unlikely that the "riots" were limited to a two-week disruption of classes in October.

But one event in the protocols of the teachers' council is still accurately noted - the strike of December 12, 1905.

... The reaction was already going on a merciless offensive, stopping at nothing. The liberal bourgeoisie recoiled from the revolution. Enthusiasm in intellectual circles faded. The heroic uprising of sappers in Kyiv, which began with a festive march to the trumpets of a military band among the ever-arriving crowd of citizens, ended in an unequal battle of the rebels - soldiers and workers - with the troops surrounding them. There were killed, wounded, captured on the battlefield, thrown into prison, doomed to be shot. The city was again under martial law. There were arrests, and troops were everywhere.

But the revolution continued. During the days of the December armed uprising in Moscow, the Kyiv Workers' Council called on the workers of Kyiv to join the general political strike. The “Committee of Secondary Educational Workers”, a revolutionary organization of Kyiv secondary educational institutions, responded to this call with a leaflet: “Considering that the Russian proletariat has declared a general political strike, and considering that the Kyiv Soviet of Workers’ Deputies has decided to join it ... for the purpose of expressing sympathy and solidarity with all the struggling proletariat, we declare a strike, inviting comrades to join it.

On December 12, the day after the start of the strike, on a very difficult day for the revolution, the Alexander Gymnasium joined the strike.

We might not have known anything about this event either, if not for a request from the office of the educational district: “G. Director of the Kyiv 1st gymnasium. I ask you, dear sir, to propose to the pedagogical council of the educational institution entrusted to you, if there were riots on December 12, to discuss these riots, identify their instigators and apply appropriate penalties to them. The reaction was advancing, the authorities felt more confident and already demanded reports on "riots" and massacres.

On December 16, the pedagogical council discussed this event. The details and duration of the student gathering and the fact that it took place in the seventh grade of the first department were clarified, the approximate number of those gathered and the names of the “deputies” who went from class to class to stop classes were determined, and of course the names of the delegates who appeared with demands in the teacher’s room, and the names of those present at a gathering of strangers. But none of this was reflected in the protocol of the pedagogical council. It was briefly recorded that the pedagogical council instructs the director (or, as they wrote then, "asks Mr. Director") "to formulate a response to the district authorities."

In a report presented some time later, “Mr. others, but nevertheless, you will agree, it is unfair to consider them "the only culprits of abnormalities in the life of the gymnasium." He noted that the "riots" on December 12 were one of the most acute moments of the "mass movement of students." He even tried diplomatically (and obviously ignoring the truth) to turn things around in such a way that the youth’s passion for politics was the result of the “Manifesto” on October 17, “which called the whole country to a conscious political life". But he did not give a single detail of the meeting and did not name a single name of the participants.

There is no significant information to be gleaned from this report. The authorities did not scoop it up either. A remark was made to the gymnasium about the insufficiently thorough record keeping and a written statement of the "dissenting opinion" of the teachers who disagreed with the director was demanded.

The teachers who had a “dissenting opinion” presented their arguments. Particularly detailed are the “teacher of the law” Tregubov and the Latinist Kosonogov, already known to us. The latter, in particular, very logically remarked that the student unrest could in no way be caused by the "highest manifesto", because it was started by the famous student rally at the university, which, as is known, took place before the manifesto. But either Kosonogov's cheek was still burning after the memorable slap in the face of extern Mikhailov, or the ingrained discipline of the official did not allow him to disobey the "Mr. Director" - he did not give a single name either ...

It was impossible to completely hush up the events that took place in the gymnasium, and therefore they made the decision proposed by the director: to deprive all high school students of their behavior marks for the first half of the 1905/06 academic year.

Covered in a harsh canvas, "General Gazette" of the Alexander Gymnasium for that academic year preserved. Against the surname of Mikhail Bulgakov, Orthodox, the son of an official, instead of marks for behavior for the first and second quarters, there are two empty columns.

The events of 1905 will be devoted to one of the very first works of Mikhail Bulgakov - the four-act drama "The Turbine Brothers".

In the summer of 1906, my father suddenly fell ill. It immediately became clear that a catastrophe was imminent. It was hypertension, in its severe, renal form, which at that time could not be recognized or treated, and which (or, as doctors say, a predisposition to which) Mikhail Bulgakov inherited. Expenses fell on the family - for several months Afanasy Ivanovich was treated in Moscow, fear for the future was looming.

Until now, the family had everything ahead - the father's successfully launched career, which seemed to be a reliable and bright future for the children. And now it turned out that the only thing that really existed in the family was seven guys - boys and girls, of which the eldest, Mikhail, went only to the sixth grade, and the younger ones - Nikolai, Ivan, Lelya - had not yet studied at all, and did not there were no estates, no savings, not even a house, but only a rented apartment for which you had to pay. And the title of an ordinary professor, and thirty years of service, which gave the right to a sufficient pension, also did not exist.

I think that Varvara Mikhailovna showed her extraordinary willpower even then. Father's friends took on a lot, and above all A. A. Glagolev, a young professor at the Theological Academy and priest of the Church of St. Nicholas the Good in Podil, the same "Father Alexander" who is so warmly depicted on the first pages of the novel "The White Guard". In December 1906, the council of the academy urgently issued the award of the degree of doctor of theology to A. I. Bulgakov and sent a petition to the Synod for the appointment of A. I. Bulgakov as an “ordinary professor over and above the staff.” A cash prize was urgently awarded for his last theological work, although A.I. could no longer submit this work to the competition (they submitted it retroactively, violating all deadlines, friends), - this was a form of financial assistance to the family. At the end of February, the decision of the Synod came to confirm A.I. Bulgakov with the rank of ordinary professor, and without any delay, in March, two days before his death, the Academy Council considers A.I.’s “petition” to dismiss him due to illness from “the full salary of the pension due to an ordinary professor for thirty years of service,” although he served only twenty-two years, and manages to make a decision about this and send it to the Synod for approval. Pension - three thousand rubles a year - from now on will remain with the family ...

In March 1907, my father was buried. Varvara Mikhailovna, remembering her girlish experience as a teacher, tried to work. Father Alexander invited her to give lessons to his little son. In 1908–1909, she was an inspector at evening general education courses for women (two of her business letters). The address directory "All Kyiv" for 1912 calls her the treasurer of the Froebel Society.

Despite the professor's pension, it was quite difficult financially. Maybe because the pension remained unchanged, while prices rose and tuition fees rose alarmingly. Twice a year, with all her perseverance, Varvara Mikhailovna sought the release of the boys - first Mikhail, then Nikolai, then Ivan - from tuition fees. “Left as a widow with seven young children and being in a difficult financial situation, I humbly ask Your Excellency to release my son from paying for the right to teach ... ”- there are many such petitions of Varvara Mikhailovna in the archives of the gymnasium. Almost every one of them contains the lines: “In addition, my son Nikolai sings in the gymnasium choir”, “In addition, my sons Nikolai and Ivan both sing in the gymnasium church choir.” The family was musical, but in this choir the boys sang, perhaps, not out of love for music. The children earned their right to study...

... In The Tale of Life, Konstantin Paustovsky tells how he once found his mother in the reception room of the director of the gymnasium - such a petitioner, and was shocked by this discovery to the core. I think that this is an artistic exaggeration: the children of intellectuals studied at the First Gymnasium, petitions for exemption from tuition fees were a custom, and thick folders are filled with them in the archives of the gymnasium. Here are many petitions from M. Paustovskaya for both sons - Konstantin and his older brother Vadim. Here are petitions, desperate, often with a resolution to "refuse", written by the mother of Nikolai Syngaevsky, one of Mikhail Bulgakov's favorite childhood friends. And the same, twice a year, the petitions of the “retired lieutenant” Bogdanov: Boris Bogdanov was a classmate and very close friend of Mikhail Bulgakov ... And for Bulgakov’s other close, beloved friends - Platon and Alexander Gdeshinsky - the gymnasium was generally unattainable. These very gifted boys were the sons of an assistant librarian of the theological academy, who received a meager salary (much less than Varvara Mikhailovna's widow's pension), and studied at the theological school, then at the theological seminary, because it was free. And yet both of them left the seminary: first Plato, decisively entering the Polytechnic Institute, then Alexander, inspired by the act of his older brother and, as he liked to say, under the influence of Mikhail Bulgakov, to the conservatory.

Varvara Mihailovna could not bear despondency. The Bulgakovs' house - since 1906 they lived at 13 Andreevsky Spusk - was noisy, festive, young. To her seven was added a niece, who came to Kyiv to study at the Higher Women's Courses, and two nephews, high school students, whose father, a priest of the Russian mission in Tokyo, served in Japan.

Inna Vasilievna Konchakovskaya, the daughter of the owners of the house who lived on the first floor, a friend and the same age as the younger Bulgakova, Lelya, says: “Varvara Mikhailovna arranged zhurfixes - something like receptions on a certain day - on Saturdays. Youth gathered - a lot ... "

But besides these days, there were other holidays. Alexander Gdeshinsky, Sashka (with his touching openness similar to Lariosik - not the Lariosik of the "White Guard", but the Lariosik of the play "Days of the Turbins"), wrote to Mikhail Bulgakov in 1939: "In Kyiv we have beautiful weather, so purple and warm, like was always on the day of September 17, when Plato and I, dressed up, walked in the evening to Andreevsky Descent. And September 17 is the name day of Hope and Faith. “I often remember the day of November 8, spent in your house…” On November 8, Mikhail's name day was celebrated.

And there were amateur performances - in the summer, in the country. Photographs have been preserved - attached beards, fantastic attire, painted, cheerful faces. If not for the inscriptions subsequently made by Nadezhda Afanasyevna, Bulgakov would probably not have been recognized on them. And there were still books. And there was still a lot - even more - music. Varya began to study at the conservatory - in the piano class. Vera, after graduating from high school, sang in the then-famous Kosice choir. Sasha Gdeshinsky came with his violin. And Bulgakov took violin lessons and played the piano well, mostly from his favorite operas - Faust, Aida, Traviata. Sang. He had a soft, beautiful baritone voice. (Nadezhda Afanasievna, speaking of this, added: “During his school years, he dreamed of becoming an opera artist. On his table was a portrait of Lev Sibiryakov - a bass very popular in those years - with an autograph: “Dreams sometimes come true.”)

Gdeshinsky, recalling his parents' house in Kyiv, at the corner of Voloshskaya and Ilyinskaya, a few minutes' walk from Andreevsky Spusk, wrote to Bulgakov in 1939: , your figure in a fur coat with a raised collar, and your baritone is heard: “Hello, my friends!”

In 1909, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the medical faculty of the university. In 1910 or 1911 he met the young Tatyana Lappa, who had come from Saratov to visit her aunt. In his teaching - this can be seen from his record book - there is some kind of breakdown: for two winters, in 1911-1913, he hardly studies and stops taking exams. Love? Creation? He writes something at this time, prose that has not come down to us. Once, showing his sister Nadezhda his stories - she remembers that it was at the end of 1912 - he said: "You'll see, I'll be a writer."

In the spring of 1913, Bulgakov and Tatyana got married. They were crowned by their father Alexander in the church of St. Nicholas the Good in Podol, and the witnesses were friends - Boris Bogdanov, Sasha and Platon Gdeshinsky and one of the "Japanese" - cousin Kostya Bulgakov.

Mikhail Bulgakov is a Russian writer and playwright, the author of many works that today are considered classics of Russian literature. Suffice it to name such novels as "The Master and Margarita", "The White Guard" and the novels "The Diaboliad", "The Heart of a Dog", "Notes on the Cuffs". Many of Bulgakov's books and plays have been filmed.

Childhood and youth

Mikhail was born in Kyiv in the family of professor-theologian Afanasy Ivanovich and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna, who was engaged in raising seven children. Misha was the eldest child and, if possible, helped his parents manage the household. Of the other Bulgakov children, Nikolai, who became a biologist, became famous, Ivan, who became famous in exile as a balalaika musician, and Varvara, who turned out to be the prototype of Elena Turbina in the novel The White Guard.

After graduating from the gymnasium, Mikhail Bulgakov enters the university at the Faculty of Medicine. His choice turned out to be connected solely with mercantile desire - both uncles of the future writer were doctors and made very good money. For a boy who grew up in large family, this nuance was fundamental.

During the First World War, Mikhail Afanasyevich served in the frontline zone as a doctor, after which he healed in Vyazma, and later in Kyiv, as a venereologist. In the early 1920s, he moved to Moscow and began literary activity, first as a feuilletonist, later as a playwright and theater director of the Moscow Art Theater and the Central Theater of Working Youth.

Books

The first published book by Mikhail Bulgakov was the story "The Adventures of Chichikov", written in a satirical manner. It was followed by the partially autobiographical Notes on the Cuffs, the social drama The Diaboliad, and the writer's first major work, the novel The White Guard. Surprisingly, Bulgakov's first novel was criticized from all sides: local censorship called it anti-communist, and the foreign press spoke of it as too loyal just in time for Soviet power.

Mikhail Afanasyevich told about the beginning of his medical activity in the collection of short stories “Notes of a Young Doctor”, which is still read with great interest today. The story "Morphine" stands out in particular. One of the author's most famous books, The Heart of a Dog, is also connected with medicine, although in reality it is a subtle satire on Bulgakov's modern reality. At the same time, the fantastic story "Fatal Eggs" was also written.

By 1930, the works of Mikhail Afanasyevich were no longer printed. For example, "Heart of a Dog" was first published only in 1987, "The Life of Monsieur de Molière" and "Theatrical Romance" - in 1965. And the most powerful and incredibly large-scale novel, The Master and Margarita, which Bulgakov wrote from 1929 until his death, was first published only at the end of the 60s, and then in an abridged form.

In March 1930, the writer, who lost ground under his feet, sent a letter to the government in which he asked to decide his fate - either to allow him to emigrate, or to give him the opportunity to work. As a result, he received a personal phone call and said that he would be allowed to stage performances. But the publication of Bulgakov's books never resumed during his lifetime.

Theatre

Back in 1925, Mikhail Bulgakov's plays, Zoya's Apartment, Days of the Turbins, based on the novel The White Guard, The Run, Crimson Island, were staged with great success on the stage of Moscow theaters. A year later, the ministry wanted to ban the production of The Days of the Turbins as an "anti-Soviet thing", but it was decided not to do this, since Stalin really liked the performance, who visited it 14 times.

Soon, Bulgakov's plays were nevertheless removed from the repertoire of all theaters in the country, and only in 1930, after the personal intervention of the Leader, Mikhail Afanasyevich was reinstated as a playwright and director.

He staged Gogol's "Dead Souls" and Dickens's "Pickwick Club", but his author's plays "", "Bliss", "Ivan Vasilyevich" and others during the life of the playwright were never published.

The only exception was the play "The Cabal of the Hypocrites", staged based on Bulgakov's play "" in 1936 after a five-year series of failures. The premiere was a huge success, but the troupe managed to give only 7 shows, after which the play was banned. After that, Mikhail Afanasyevich quits the theater and later earns a living as a translator.

Personal life

The first wife of the great writer was Tatyana Lappa. Their wedding was more than poor - the bride did not even have a veil, and then they lived very modestly. By the way, it was Tatyana who became the prototype for Anna Kirillovna from the story "Morphine".

In 1925, Bulgakov met Lyubov Belozerskaya, who came from an old family of princes. She was fond of literature and fully understood Mikhail Afanasyevich as a creator. The writer immediately divorces Lappa and marries Belozerskaya.

And in 1932 he met Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, nee Nuremberg. A man leaves his second wife and leads his third wife down the aisle. By the way, it is Elena who is depicted in his most famous novel in the image of Margarita. Bulgakov lived with his third wife until the end of his life, and it was she who made titanic efforts so that later the works of her beloved were published. Michael had no children with any of his wives.

There is a funny arithmetic-mystical situation with Bulgakov's spouses. Each of them had three official marriages, like himself. Moreover, for the first wife of Tatyana, Mikhail was the first spouse, for the second Lyubov - the second, and for the third Elena, respectively, the third. So Bulgakov's mysticism is present not only in books, but also in life.

Death

In 1939, the writer worked on the play "Batum" about Joseph Stalin, in the hope that such a work would definitely not be banned. The play was already being prepared for production when the order came to stop rehearsals. After that, Bulgakov's health began to deteriorate sharply - he began to lose his sight, and congenital kidney disease also made itself felt.

Mikhail Afanasyevich returned to the use of morphine to relieve pain symptoms. From the winter of 1940, the playwright stopped getting out of bed, and on March 10, the great writer died. Mikhail Bulgakov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, and at the insistence of his wife, a stone was laid on his grave, which was previously installed on the grave.

Bibliography

1922 - "The Adventures of Chichikov"
1923 - "Notes of a young doctor"
1923 - Diaboliad
1923 - "Notes on cuffs"
1924 - "White Guard"
1924 - "Fatal Eggs"
1925 - "Heart of a Dog"
1925 - "Zoyka's apartment"
1928 - "Running"
1929 - "Secret Friend"
1929 - "The Cabal of the Saints"
1929-1940 - The Master and Margarita
1933 - "The Life of Monsieur de Molière"
1936 - "Ivan Vasilyevich"
1937 - "Theatrical novel"

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was born on May 3 (May 15, according to a new style), 1891, a Russian Soviet writer, playwright and theater director. Author of novels, short stories, feuilletons, plays, dramatizations, screenplays and opera librettos.

Childhood and youth

Mikhail Bulgakov was born into the family of Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov (1859-1907), a professor at the Kyiv Theological Academy, and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna (nee Pokrovskaya) (1869-1922) at 28 Vozdvizhenskaya Street in Kyiv. There were seven children in the Bulgakov family: Mikhail (1891-1940), Vera (1892-1972), Nadezhda (1893-1971), Varvara (1895-1954), Nikolai (1898-1966), Ivan (1900-1969) and Elena (1902-1954).

Mikhail Bulgakov from childhood was distinguished by artistry, love for theatrical productions. Home performances were often played in the family, Mikhail was the author of playful vaudeville plays and comic skits. In 1909 he graduated from the Kyiv First Gymnasium and entered the medical faculty of Kyiv University. On October 31, 1916, Bulgakov received a diploma of approval "in the degree of a doctor with honors with all the rights and benefits assigned by the laws of the Russian Empire to this degree."

The future writer chose the profession of a doctor solely for material reasons. After the death of his father, he remained the eldest man in the family. True, the mother married a second time, but Mikhail did not have a relationship with his stepfather, unlike his younger brothers and sisters. He aspired, first of all, to financial independence. In addition, at the time of graduation from the university, Bulgakov was already a married man.

Bulgakov, a medical student, married Tatiana Nikolaevna Lappa (1892-1982) in 1913. Some relatives of M.A. Bulgakov (in particular, the husband of his sister Varvara Leonid Karum) subsequently reproached him for the fact that the first marriage, as well as the choice of profession, was also dictated by selfish calculation. Tatyana Lappa turned out to be the "general's daughter" (her father was a real state adviser). However, L. Karum had every reason to be prejudiced against his famous relative: Bulgakov portrayed him as a negative character (Colonel Talberg in the novel The White Guard and the play Days of the Turbins).

According to the memoirs of Tatyana Lappa herself, the Bulgakovs' financial difficulties began on the day of their wedding:

“Of course, I didn’t have any veil, I didn’t have a wedding dress either - I’m somewhere to do all the money that my father sent. Mom came to the wedding - she was horrified. I had a pleated linen skirt, my mother bought a blouse. We were crowned by Fr. Alexander ... For some reason, they laughed terribly under the crown. We rode home in a carriage after church. There were few guests at dinner. I remember there were a lot of flowers, most of all - daffodils ... ".

Tatyana's father sent her 50 rubles a month (at that time a decent amount). But the money in their wallet quickly dissolved, since Bulgakov did not like to save and was a man of impulse. If he wanted to take a taxi with the last of his money, he would take this step without hesitation.

“Mother scolded for frivolity. We will come to dine with her, she sees - no rings, no chain of mine. “Well, that means everything is in a pawnshop!” T.N. Lapp.

After the outbreak of the First World War, M. Bulgakov worked for several months as a doctor in the frontline zone, then was sent to work in the remote village of Nikolskoye, Sychevsky district, Smolensk province. It was here that the first stories were written ("Star Rash", "Towel with a Rooster", etc.). In Nikolskoye, according to T. Lapp, Mikhail Afanasyevich became addicted to drugs. At the beginning of 1917, he persistently petitioned his superiors for a transfer to a larger locality where it was possible to hide his drug addiction from prying eyes. Otherwise, Bulgakov risked losing his medical degree. On September 20, 1917, Bulgakov went to work in the Vyazemsky city zemstvo hospital as the head of the infectious and venereal departments.

Civil War

At the end of February 1918, the Bulgakovs returned to Kyiv, settling with younger brothers and Mikhail's sisters in the parental apartment. Bulgakov works as a venereologist in private practice. By the spring of 1918, he managed to completely recover from morphinism, however, according to the recollections of people who knew him closely, during this period Mikhail Afanasyevich began to abuse alcohol.

The tragic events of 1918 in Kyiv and Bulgakov's participation in them are partly reflected in his story "The Extraordinary Adventures of the Doctor" (1922) and the novel "The White Guard" (1924). On the last day of Skoropadsky's hetmanship (December 14, 1918), doctor M.A. Bulgakov was either mobilized into his army, or went voluntarily as a military doctor to one of the officer detachments. The detachments, which consisted of volunteer officers and cadets, as you know, were disbanded under their own responsibility by the deputy commander-in-chief, General F.A. Keller. According to the memoirs of T. N. Lapp, on that day Bulgakov did not participate in any hostilities, but simply arrived home in a cab and "said that it was all over and there would be Petliura." Nevertheless, the flight of Dr. Turbin from the Petliurists, later described in the novel, is quite autobiographical. The writer's biographers attribute this episode to February 1919, when M. Bulgakov was forcibly mobilized as a military doctor into the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The Petliurites were already leaving the city, and at one of the crossings Bulgakov managed to escape.

“He later said that he somehow lagged behind a little, then a little more, behind a pole, after another, and rushed into the alley to run. So I ran, so my heart was pounding, I thought there would be a heart attack, ”recalled the wife of the writer T.N. Lappa.

At the end of August 1919, according to one version, M. A. Bulgakov was mobilized into the Red Army, again as a military doctor. On October 14-16, he returned to Kyiv and during the street fighting went over to the side of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia, becoming a military doctor of the 3rd Terek Cossack Regiment. According to the writer's wife, Bulgakov until the arrival of the Whites (August 1919) was in the city without a break. In August-September 1919, he was mobilized as a doctor in the Volunteer Army and sent to North Caucasus. Participated in the campaign against Chechen-aul and Shali-aul against the rebellious highlanders. On November 26, 1919, Bulgakov's famous feuilleton "Future Prospects" was published in the Grozny newspaper.

At the end of 1919 - beginning of 1920 M.A. Bulgakov worked as a doctor in a military hospital in Vladikavkaz, but in February 1920 he made his final choice in favor of literature, leaves medicine and becomes a permanent contributor to the Kavkaz newspaper.

In February 1920, the Whites leave Vladikavkaz. The Bulgakovs could not leave after the retreating army: Mikhail became seriously ill with typhus. He managed to hide the fact of his service in the White Army and avoid reprisals, but subsequently Mikhail Afanasyevich repeatedly reproached his wife for not finding an opportunity to take him out of the city. If this had happened, Bulgakov would no doubt have emigrated. And who knows? Perhaps Russian literature would have lost one of the brilliant prose writers and playwrights of the 20th century. It is unlikely that Bulgakov, an emigrant, could have succeeded as a writer in the conditions of refugee life, all the more so - to acquire such wide popularity.

The beginning of the way

Upon recovery, M.A. Bulgakov goes to work in the Vladikavkaz Revolutionary Committee. He was appointed head of the section of the sub-department of arts, put on the stage revolutionary plays of his own composition: "Self-defense", "The Turbine Brothers", "Paris Communards", "Sons of the Mullah". These productions were not particularly successful, and the playwright himself felt that he was capable of more.

September 24, 1921 M. Bulgakov moved to Moscow. He began to cooperate as a feuilletonist with the capital's newspapers Pravda, Gudok, Rabochy and the magazines medical worker”,“ Russia ”,“ Revival ”. At the same time, he published chapters from the story "Notes on the Cuffs" in the "Literary Supplement" to the emigrant newspaper "On the Eve", published in Berlin. From 1922 to 1926 in Gudok, where M.A. Bulgakov at one time worked as a sorter of letters, more than 120 of his reports, essays and feuilletons were published.

In 1923, M. Bulgakov joined the All-Russian Union of Writers, which was later transformed into the RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers).

In 1924, at the evening of the Nakanune publishing house, the aspiring writer met Lyubov Evgenievna Belozerskaya (1898-1987), who had recently returned from abroad. Soon she became the new wife of Mikhail Afanasyevich. Marriage to Belozerskaya, who had extensive connections in literary world, played the role of a necessary "step" in the career of few famous author. According to the observations of contemporaries, the spouses were not spiritually close people, but thanks to Belozerskaya and her acquaintances, Bulgakov's most significant work at that time, the novel The White Guard, saw the light of day. Immediately after the release of the first part of the novel, the author received an offer from the Moscow Art Theater to write a modern play. In 1925, the Days of the Turbins appeared.

On the title page"White Guard", as you know, Bulgakov placed a dedication to his new wife, which caused a mortal insult to T.N. Lapp. Tatyana Nikolaevna remained his faithful companion throughout the most difficult years of illness, revolution, civil war. She became an eyewitness and participant in the Kyiv events described in the novel, but the abandoned wife did not find a place either on the pages of the work or in the new Moscow life of the writer. Mikhail Afanasyevich was fully aware of his guilt before this woman (in 1916 he insisted on an abortion, which did not allow T.N. Lappa to have more children). Already after parting, Bulgakov repeatedly told her: "Because of you, Tasya, God will punish me."

Success and bullying

You have to pay for everything in life. The success of the play "Days of the Turbins" at the Moscow Art Theater (1926) did not cancel the subsequent persecution and the almost complete ban on Bulgakov's works in the late 1920s. I.V. liked the play. Stalin, but in his speeches the leader agreed: "Days of the Turbins" - "an anti-Soviet thing, and Bulgakov is not ours." At the same time, intensive and extremely sharp criticism of M. Bulgakov's work takes place in the Soviet press. According to his own calculations, in 10 years there were 298 abusive reviews and only 3 favorable ones. Among the critics were such influential officials and writers as V. Mayakovsky, A. Bezymensky, L. Averbakh, P. Kerzhentsev and many others.

At the end of October 1926, at the Vakhtangov Theater, the premiere of the play based on the play "Zoyka's Apartment" was held with great success. However, the play "Running", dedicated to the events of the Civil War, was never allowed to be staged. Bulgakov was asked to make a number of ideological changes to its text, which he categorically rejected. In 1928-1929, Days of the Turbins, Zoya's Apartment, Crimson Island were removed from the repertoire of the capital's theaters.

The novel "The White Guard" and especially the play "Days of the Turbins" became widely known among the Russian emigration. However, the “Soviet” creativity of the writer was not accepted by white emigrants. In 1929, Bulgakov came up with the idea of the novel The Master and Margarita. According to L.E. Belozerskaya, the first edition of the novel existed in the form of a manuscript already in 1930. Probably, the novel was written with the prospect of its publication abroad: sharp criticism of the surrounding reality and an appeal to the theme of Jesus Christ completely ruled out its appearance on the pages of the Soviet press.

When all Bulgakov's works were banned in Soviet Russia and ceased to be published, the writer seriously intended to leave the USSR to reunite with his family (his two brothers lived abroad). In 1930, Mikhail Afanasyevich wrote to his brother Nikolai in Paris about the unfavorable literary and theatrical situation for himself and his difficult, even desperate financial situation.

Writer and Leader

Hounded and persecuted, the Soviet playwright Bulgakov also wrote a letter to the Government of the USSR, dated March 28, 1930, asking him to determine his fate - either to give him the right to emigrate or to give him the opportunity to work in the Soviet country.

April 18, 1930 M.A. I.V. called Bulgakov himself. Stalin. In brief telephone conversation the leader expressed sincere bewilderment at the playwright's desire to leave the country: "What, are you very tired of us?" Bulgakov replied that he was a Russian writer and would like to work in Russia. Stalin strongly recommended that he apply to the Moscow Art Theater.

From 1930 to 1936 M.A. Bulgakov worked at the Moscow Art Theater as an assistant director. In 1932, on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater, a performance of Dead Souls staged by Bulgakov took place. On February 16, 1932, the play "Days of the Turbins" was resumed. In a letter to his friend P. Popov, Bulgakov reported this as follows:

Of course, the "wonderful order" was given not by any government, but by Stalin. At this time, he watched a play based on Afinogenov's play "Fear" at the Moscow Art Theater, which he did not like. The leader remembered Bulgakov and ordered to restore the "Days of the Turbins" - which was instantly executed. The performance was kept on stage Art Theater until June 1941. However, not a single theater, except the Moscow Art Theater, was allowed to stage Stalin's favorite play.

In the same 1932, M.A. Bulgakov finally broke up with L.E. Belozerskaya. His third wife was Elena Sergeevna Shilovskaya, with whom he lived for the rest of his life.

In 1934, Bulgakov asked the government of the USSR to grant him a two-month trip abroad "to improve his health." Perhaps the purpose of this trip was also to offer émigré publishing houses another version of The Master and Margarita. In 1931, in view of his failed emigration, Bulgakov began to write the novel anew, and researchers date its second (by no means the last) edition to 1934.

But Bulgakov is refused. Comrade Stalin was well aware that if Bulgakov remained abroad, the play Days of the Turbins would have to be removed from the repertoire. The playwright becomes "not allowed to travel abroad", but at the same time acquires the status of "inviolable". In the event of Bulgakov's arrest on any charge, the leader could also lose his favorite show ...

In 1936, after almost five years of rehearsals, the Moscow Art Theater saw the release of the play "The Cabal of the Saints." There were only seven performances, and the performance was banned, and Pravda published a devastating article about this "false, reactionary and worthless" play. After an article in Pravda, Bulgakov had to leave the Moscow Art Theater. He started working in Bolshoi Theater as a librettist and translator. In 1937, M. Bulgakov worked on the libretto "Minin and Pozharsky" and "Peter I", at the same time finishing the last edition of the manuscript of "The Master and Margarita".

It seemed that in the late 1930s the chances of the novel being published in the USSR were greater than in the late 1920s, when Bulgakov began work on it. The intensity of anti-religious propaganda decreased, and the activities of the church were reduced to zero by the efforts of the authorities. Many of Bulgakov's critics were repressed or simply left the stage. The RAPP was dissolved, and Bulgakov was accepted into the new Union of Writers immediately, in June 1934. In 1937, Mikhail Alexandrovich received offers from many well-known publishing houses to write a "Soviet adventure novel." Bulgakov refused. Only once did he dare to propose for publication a chapter from The Master and Margarita, but Angarsky, the former editor of the Nedra almanac (later also repressed), answered clearly: “This cannot be printed.” "Why?" Bulgakov asked, wanting to hear a reasoned answer. "You can't," Angarsky repeated, refusing any explanation.

On September 9, 1938, representatives of the Moscow Art Theater visited Bulgakov. They asked to forget past grievances and write new play about Stalin. Bulgakov was ready to go to great lengths to be allowed to print his Master and Margarita. The play "Batum" was written in 1939, for the 60th anniversary of the leader. Of course, Bulgakov, inspired by the image of the young Stalin, could not get any materials for the play, nor access to archival documents. The events of "Batum" are based on official sources published at that time and represent, for the most part, fiction. Everyone to whom Bulgakov read the play praised it (there were no brave people to scold the work about Stalin). Stalin himself also approved of "Batum", but, contrary to the expectations of the author, the play was immediately banned from printing and staging without any fanfare. Undertaking to write a "custom" play, the playwright did not even suspect that Iosif Dzhugashvili did not need memories of his pre-revolutionary past at all. The infallible Leader of the peoples, no doubt, had something to hide.

Illness and death

According to the memoirs of E.S. Bulgakova (Shilovskaya), Mikhail Afanasyevich from the very beginning of their life together often talked about his imminent death. Friends and relatives of the writer perceived these conversations, rather, as another joke: in spite of everything, in life Bulgakov was a cheerful person and loved practical jokes. In 1939, at the age of 48, he fell ill with nephrosclerosis. Bulgakov knew that hypertensive nephrosclerosis was a hereditary and fatal disease. A former physician, he may have felt the first symptoms very early. At the same age, nephrosclerosis brought Father Mikhail Afanasyevich to the grave.

M. Bulgakov's health was rapidly deteriorating, he periodically lost his sight, continued to use morphine, prescribed to him in 1924, in order to relieve pain symptoms. During this period, the writer began a new, final revision of the novel The Master and Margarita. When he was finally blind, he dictated to his wife the last versions of the chapters. Editing stopped on February 13, 1940, at the words of Margarita: “So, it means that the writers are following the coffin?”

On March 10, 1940, Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov died. On March 11, a civil memorial service was held in the building of the Union Soviet writers. Before the memorial service, Moscow sculptor S.D. Merkurov removed the death mask from M. Bulgakov's face.

Buried by M.A. Bulgakov at the Novodevichy Cemetery. On his grave, at the request of his wife E.S. Bulgakova, a stone was installed, nicknamed "calvary", which previously lay on the grave of N.V. Gogol.

Elena Shirokova

Based on materials from the book Sokolov B. Three Lives of Mikhail Bulgakov. – M.: Ellis Luck, 1997.

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