Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov

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Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov , 1891–1940, Russian novelist and playwright. He wrote satirical stories ( The Deviliad, 1925, tr. 1972) and comedies ( Zoe's Apartment, 1926) and the long novel The White Guard (1925, tr. 1971), in which a Kievan family hostile to the revolution is sympathetically and realistically portrayed. He condensed and dramatized this as The Days of the Turbines (1926, tr. 1934). The satirical and philosophical novel The Master and Margarita (tr. 1967, 1995) is considered his most important book; it was not published until a censored edition appeared in 1967 (other versions were published in 1973 and 1989). He worked intermittently on this fantasy, which concerns Satan's visit to Moscow, from 1928 until his death. His other novels include The Heart of a Dog (1925, tr. 1968). Bulgakov was officially criticized for several of his works.

Bibliography: See The Early Plays of Mikhail Bulgakov: 1926–1936 (tr. 1972); study by A. C. Wright (1978).