Mikhail Bulgakov: A Wolf's Life

In the late 1930’s, at a time when Bulgakov had been forced into silence by the watchdogs of Stalinist orthodoxy, he applied to himself words that had been used to describe the great German fantasist, E. T. A. Hoffmann: “He transforms literature into a battle tower, from which, as an artist, he metes out satiric punishment against all that is deformed in the real world.”

A connection between literature and battle in Bulgakov’s work can actually be traced to his very first attempt at creative writing—at the age of seven: a knightly tale entitled “The Adventures of Svetlan.” The fact that at this tender age he chose the adventure genre was no mere chance, because the young Bulgakov was, by all accounts, a pugnacious child, who took the lead in yearly school battles. His most deadly weapon, however, as a schoolmate, the writer Konstantin Paustovsky, recalls, was “his merciless tongue, which everyone feared.” Thus, as a boy Bulgakov already had the temperament of the satirist. But he also possessed another ingredient essential for satire: a moral standard against which to measure society. This was instilled in him by his father, Afanasy Ivanovich (1859-1907), a professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, who in his writings advocated the primacy of moral education: “The distinction between good and evil, an arousal of love of good and hatred of evil, . . . – these are the cornerstones that should form the foundation of ‘educational’ activity.”

Bulgakov’s calling as a writer was apparent early. But, as the eldest son of a large, fatherless family (his father died when he was sixteen), he needed to choose a useful profession. Therefore, like several of his uncles before him and his younger brother Nikolai after him, he decided to study medicine. He graduated from the medical faculty of Kiev University in 1916, in the middle of World War I. After a short period at the front as a Red Cross volunteer, he was sent to a village hospital to replace the more experienced doctor, who had been mobilized in the war effort. Although this assignment took him far from the actual fighting, in Notes of a Young Doctor, the fictionalized version of his experiences, he characteristically saw in military terms his medical battle against disease and ignorance (which he terms “Egyptian darkness”): “The Egyptian darkness spread out like a shroud ... and I appear to be in it ...with something like a sword, or perhaps a stethoscope. I am walking ... I am struggling ... Out in the sticks.”

During the revolutionary year of 1917, Bulgakov was still “in the sticks,” but by early 1918 he succeeded in receiving a discharge and returning to his native Kiev. The Ukrainian capital was a particularly tumultuous place during the Civil War, with the political-military struggle complicated by strong nationalist sentiment and German occupation, in accord with the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, which sealed Russia’s withdrawal from the World War. When Bulgakov and his wife returned to Kiev, the country was ruled by the hetman Pavel Skoropadsky, whose government had been set up by the Germans. By December 1918, however, Skoropadsky was easily toppled by the invading forces of Simon Petlyura, who had broad support from the Ukrainian masses. But Petlyura’s ascendancy was not to last long either; he was ousted by the Bolsheviks in February 1919.

Bulgakov was ineluctably drawn into the turmoil of Civil War Kiev, and his experiences had a profound influence on his early literary works. His family, Russians who feared Ukrainian nationalism, supported the conservative Skoropadsky. Mikhail and his two younger brothers, Nikolai and Ivan, served among the few poorly trained troops (Mikhail as a doctor), who waged a defense against Petlyura’s forces in December 1918, unaware that the hetman himself had fled the city with the Germans. When in the midst of the conflict Mikhail discovered Skoropadsky’s betrayal, he abandoned the fray and went home. Judging by his later literary retellings of this episode, he was deeply disturbed by his behavior, so much at odds with his childhood ideal of military valor. A still more traumatic incident occurred when Bulgakov was mobilized by Petlyura’s troops shortly before their rout by the Bolsheviks. During their retreat he watched helplessly as a Cossack chief beat a Jew to death with a ramrod. He then managed to escape and run home. His self-recrimination at being unable to prevent the atrocity, at running away in fear instead, is expressed several times in his early work. As the hero of the story “On the Night of the Second” exclaims: “They [the Petlyurites] are bandits! ... But I ... I ... am intellectual scum.”

Bulgakov’s flight continued when in the Fall of 1919 he left Kiev with Denikin’s White Army, which had briefly occupied the city. He ended up in Vladikavkaz in the northern Caucasus, where he served as doctor to the Whites and began to publish in local newspapers. When the Bolsheviks were approaching the city in March 1920, he clearly intended to flee once again with the Whites, but was prevented when he contracted typhus. By the time he recovered, the Bolsheviks were in control.

It was around this time that Bulgakov decided to give up medicine and devote himself entirely to literature. Although the motivation for this decision can only be surmised, his experiences as a military doctor, subject to mobilization from all sides, helplessly witnessing atrocities he could in no way prevent, may have led him to reject his medical calling in order to take up the weapons of literature. Indeed, he did not have long to wait for the first skirmishes in Bolshevik-controlled Vladikavkaz. From the beginning, Bulgakov’s White background and ideological unorthodoxy made him subject to attack and, as time passed, the situation grew ever more perilous. Therefore, as soon as possible—in May 1921—he resumed his flight, departing from Vladikavkaz, first for the Georgian capital Tiflis, and then for the port town of Batum. He considered fleeing still farther—into emigration, but at last he reversed his course and headed for Moscow, to test his literary prowess at the very heart of the new Soviet state.

Bulgakov’s earliest serious works present fictionalized versions of his Civil War experiences, in which the theme of flight is central. In the first part of Notes on the Cuff (1920-22), the first-person narrator describes his panic-stricken impulse to flee Vladikavkaz for Batum and then abroad for Paris. Then, in the three stories he wrote in quick succession in 1922 (“Unusual Adventures of a Doctor,” “The Red Crown,” “On the Night of the Second” – the latter actually part of an early draft of his novel White Guard), he portrays the failures of courage of his autobiographical heroes during the Civil War. At the same time, however, in the successive portrayals the hero gradually evolves—he grows both stronger and more sympathetic, the positive ideals of civilization and healing he represents offering positive alternatives to the primitive ethics of military honor. And in the works that culminate the Civil War line in Bulgakov’s works, the novel The White Guard (1925) and the play Days of the Turbins (1926), the hero undergoes yet more fundamental changes. In the novel, Dr. Aleksei Turbin, although still akin to the weak and high-strung autobiographical heroes of the early stories, experiences a sudden reversal when fleeing from the Petlyurites. His instinctual fear is transformed into rage and he performs an act of which his predecessors could only dream: he shoots back at the enemy. His act of courage is underlined by the words of his rescuer, the mysterious, seductive Yulia Reiss, who calls him “brave.”

In Days of the Turbins, a dramatic reworking of The White Guard, the change in the hero is far more radical—indeed, he can no longer be called autobiographical at all. In the play, Aleksei Turbin has been transformed from a sensitive, contemplative doctor into a masterful, fearless colonel who gives up his life to save those under his command. If this alteration was in part a response to external forces—Bulgakov’s second wife, Lyubov Belozerskaya, recalls that the Moscow Art Theater director Konstantin Stanislavsky suggested it—it nevertheless contains a certain inner logic. For if the earlier doctor heroes were tormented by their weakness, conscience-stricken by their inability to prevent atrocities, in the colonel Bulgakov created a strong character who actually is responsible for others, who can and does save lives. In this sense, Aleksei Turbin’s transformation may not have been simply the result of outward pressure, but of deep inner impulses. Finally, in 1926, in the story “I Killed,” Bulgakov created one more version of the autobiographical hero, Dr. Yashvin, who actually kills a bestial Petlyurite colonel in defense of a woman. After this restoration of a courageous image of self, the autobiographical Civil War hero disappears from Bulgakov’s prose.

If Bulgakov in his Civil War works looked backward and inward, his writings on contemporary life usually turned to the outside world, upon which he aimed the verbal weapon of satire. Bulgakov’s short satirical works, or feuilletons, appeared primarily in two very different newspapers: Nakanune (On the Eve), published in Germany by the emigre Change of Landmarks group, which espoused rapprochement with the Soviets, and Gudok (The Whistle), the organ of the railway workers union, whose talented young staff included such future luminaries of Soviet literature as Ilf and Petrov, Yury Olesha, and Valentin Kataev. The pieces published in Nakanune typically reflected Bulgakov’s own experience in Moscow during the early 1920’s, during the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Although they by no means gloss over the vices and incongruities of the time, they are unique among Bulgakov’s works for expressing the optimism of a period of recovery and reconstruction. As he writes in one feuilleton, “The Capital in a Pad” (“Stolitsa v bloknote,” 1922): “This season they were renovating, plastering, gluing. Next season, I believe, they will be building . . . Perhaps it is the fantasy of a Muscovite true believer... But in my opinion, say what you like, I see – a Renaissance.”

The feuilletons Bulgakov wrote for Gudok, in contrast, were based not on personal observations, but on letters sent to the newspaper by its provincial working class readers. These gave a broader view of Soviet reality than Bulgakov could gain in Moscow, and his Gudok sketches create a considerably more negative impression than do the Nakanune pieces. Taken in their totality, they show the repeated failures of the Communists to create the new Soviet man, reveal the same old vices, both personal and bureaucratic, hidden beneath a deceptive layer of high-sounding rhetoric. If the Nakanune pieces eulogize the new construction, in Gudok a dominant image is of collapse – the destruction of the various institutions and people devoted to molding the new world. One example is “Sounds of an Unearthly Polka” (“Zvuki pol’ki nezemnoi”), which takes place in a People’s House, (nardom), ostensibly dedicated to the betterment of the masses. The diabolical atmosphere, however, anticipates The Master and Margarita—“An evil spirit was rushing about in the hall as at a witches’ sabbath”—as does the drunken vision of collapse of the People’s House: “A storm was raging in the hall. The ceilings and floors were caving in.”

The destructiveness inherent both in the ideals and the reality of the new society are shown in greatest depth in Bulgakov’s three fantastic novellas of the 1920’s. In The Diaboliad (“Diavoliada,” 1924), the head clerk Korotkov loses his mind—and his life—in the attempt to maintain his identity in the collectivized, bureaucratic world. In The Fatal Eggs (“Rokovye yaytsa,” 1924) and Heart of a Dog (“Sobach’e serdtse,” 1925), Bulgakov chose as his heroes distinguished scientists, who culturally belong to the old world, but whose “revolutionary” attempts to transform nature align them with the Soviets. In both cases the scientists themselves become victims as their experiments go awry. Persikov, the hero of The Fatal Eggs, perishes as Korotkov did before him, but in Heart of a Dog Bulgakov creates a masterful hero, Dr. Preobrazhensky, who ultimately vanquishes his foes. Through his scientific prowess he succeeds in reversing his earlier operation, annihilating the pernicious man (a satire on the new Soviet man) that he inadvertently created from a dog, turning him back into a lovable pooch. Thus in a satirical work, Heart of a Dog, Bulgakov succeeds in creating a strong hero capable of destroying the enemy, just as he did at about the same time in the Civil War writings.

From the very beginning of his career, Bulgakov’s works were greeted with particular hostility by literary critics committed to the new Communist order. Heart of a Dog, however—both because of the changing political climate in 1925 and the sharpness of its satire—was the first of his writings to be banned outright. After this, only a very few of Bulgakov’s stories were published, and by the end of 1927 his name disappeared entirely from print. His playwriting career lasted somewhat longer. In 1926, Days of the Turbins was an immense hit with the public, but was virulently attacked by practically all the critics for its sympathetic portrait of the Whites. One even coined the odd word “Bulgakovism” (Bulgakovshchina), the prototype for the “Pilatism” (Pilatchina) of The Master and Margarita. Nevertheless, two more of his plays, Zoyka’s Apartment (Zoikina kvartira, 1927) and The Crimson Island (Bagrovyi ostrov, 1928) were successfully produced. By 1929, however, all of Bulgakov’s theatrical works were also banned.

The violent verbal attacks to which Bulgakov was now subjected, like the earlier military battles, aroused in him the urge to flee. This time, however, no escape was possible, only surrender, as Bulgakov wrote to Stalin in a letter of 30 May, 1931: “They [the critics] have treated me like a wolf. And for several years they pursued me according to the rules of literary ambush in an enclosed yard. ... The beast has announced that he is no longer a wolf, not a literary man. He is rejecting his profession. He has fallen silent.” The attacks brought on bouts of intense anxiety, during one of which, in March 1930, he burned early drafts of The Master and Margarita, and other works.

As many others have noted, the parallels between Bulgakov and his hero, the Master—who also burned his novel in response to critical attack—are striking. One must hasten to add, however, that writer and character are far from identical. For if the Master, like so many of Bulgakov’s earlier heroes, succumbs to his fear and finally retreats to a mental hospital, the author—despite periods of despair verging on mental breakdown—stood fast. The very fact of his letter to Stalin, quoted above—one of a number sent to the Soviet leader and others high up in the government—is testimony to his courage and demonstrates his unwillingness to compromise his beliefs and artistic vision. This can be seen elsewhere in the letter, where he writes, again using the wolf metaphor: “In the broad field of Russian letters in the USSR I was the one and only literary wolf. I was advised to dye my fur. Absurd advice. You can dye a wolf, clip a wolf—it still doesn’t look like a poodle.” His startling honesty is even more apparent in an earlier letter, of 28 March, 1930. There he declares himself a “mystical writer” and expresses his “profound skepticism . . . toward the revolutionary process.” He asks permission to leave the Soviet Union or, if that proved impossible, to work in any capacity for the Moscow Art Theater. Stalin, who greatly admired Days of the Turbins (he reportedly saw the play fifteen times), telephoned Bulgakov on 18 April, 1930 and, according to the writer’s third wife Yelena Sergeyevna, asked him if he wanted to go abroad. The writer responded in the negative, explaining that he did not believe that a Russian writer could live outside his homeland. Stalin therefore arranged that his second request be granted, and Bulgakov received a post at the Moscow Art Theater.

If the writer’s boldness in the face of the all-powerful leader distinguishes him from his timid hero the Master, a yet more important difference lay in Bulgakov’s refusal to abandon literature. He continued to write for the theater, although virtually all attempts to get his plays produced in the 1930’s ended badly. Only in 1932 was his adaptation of Gogol’s Dead Souls staged (although with his original conception changed), and Days of the Turbins revived—reportedly at the direct intercession of Stalin. None of his other plays were produced, with the partial exception of Molière, which, first banned in 1930, opened at the Moscow Art Theater in 1936. It closed, however, a few days later, after a vituperous attack in Pravda (very ominous in those days of high Stalinism). Because of what he perceived as capitulation by the theater, Bulgakov resigned from its staff and joined the Bolshoi Theater as librettist.

Bulgakov also continued to write narrative prose, but with no real hope of getting it published. He carried forth his satirical battle in his unfinished novel, Black Snow (Teatral’nyi roman or Zapiski pokoinika), with the Moscow Art Theater the object of his attack. And in his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, which he continually revised and expanded until his death in 1940, he poured his artistic gift not only into the pathetic writer, the Master, but also into that diabolical arch-satirist, Woland, who, in the words Bulgakov applied to himself, “metes out satiric punishment against all that is deformed in the real world.”  RL

Edythe C. Haber is Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and Associate at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Harvard University. She is the author of the biography Mikhail Bulgakov: The Early Years, published by Harvard University Press.