“The silent writer doesn’t exist. If he has fallen silent, that means he’s not a real writer. And if a real writer has fallen silent, he will perish.” —Mikhail Bulgakov
The diaries and selected letters of Mikhail Bulgakov shed important light on the life and creative process of one of Russia’s premier satirists and dramatists, as well as on the long-term effects of politically motivated censorship on a vigorous and insightful mind.
Bulgakov’s diaries stop midway through the 1920s—the Bolshevik secret police raided the author’s apartment and confiscated his private notebooks in 1926—but up until their confiscation Bulgakov wrote with a keen sense of both humor and realism about his day-to-day life as well as about the wider social and political context in which he lived and worked.
After his personal journals were confiscated, Bulgakov took to chronicling his thoughts in letters. These missives were written mostly to friends and family—but also to contemporaries such as fellow Soviet writers Gorky and Zamyatin, and even to Joseph Stalin—and are both bitingly funny and full of pain, mundane and sublime.
This selection of Bulgakov’s private diaries and correspondence gives modern readers a fascinating glimpse into a period of Russian history and literature that was simultaneously alive with creative energy and darkened by the iron grip of censorship.
The Alma Classics edition of Diaries and Selected Letters is translated by Roger Cockrell with the authorization of the Bulgakov Estate and Andrew Nurnberg Associates. Roger Cockrell, previously the Head of the University of Exeter’s Russian Department, has worked extensively on expert translations of Russian works such as Bulgakov’s other work, The White Guard. His translation reflects the clear, humorous, and profound language of the original with colloquial English idioms and phrasings. Readers without previous experience in Russian literature will find this translation to be accessible and fun, even though the subtext of Bulgakov’s works is the murky, mysterious underbelly of Soviet culture.
Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian playwright, novelist, and physician best known for his satirical classic, The Master and Margarita. Born in Kiev in 1891, Bulgakov was drawn to both literature and the theater from his early youth. As a young man, Bulgakov studied to become a doctor and volunteered with the Red Cross during the First World War. He practiced medicine for some years after WWI, and was eventually drafted as an army physician during the Russian Civil War. He contracted typhus and nearly died at his posting, and after a shaky recovery he began his professional transition from physician to playwright and author.
From 1919 until his death in 1940, his plays, short stories, and novels enjoyed degrees of critical and popular success, but Bulgakov also endured a great deal of criticism and censorship due to his propensity to mercilessly satirize the ethical and political shortcomings of life in the Soviet Union. His witty, biting, and frequently grotesque storytelling style caught the eye of Joseph Stalin, earning him some degree of political immunity. By the end of the 1920s, however, Bulgakov’s career had ground to a halt due to a government ban on the performance or publication of his work. Bulgakov’s relationship with Stalin protected him from arrest and execution, but he could not publish any of his works or stage his plays for the remaining years of his life.
Over the next decade, the ailing writer began work on The Master and Margarita, which would be his last major creative effort before his death. A brilliant satire of Soviet society, it was not published until 1966, 26 years after his death. Although he never experienced stable success and renown during his life, Bulgakov’s body of work is now firmly situated within the pantheon of great 20th century Russian literature and theater.
The diaries and selected letters of Mikhail Bulgakov shed important light on the life and creative process of one of Russia’s premier satirists and dramatists, as well as on the long-term effects of politically motivated censorship on a vigorous and insightful mind.
Bulgakov’s diaries stop midway through the 1920s—the Bolshevik secret police raided the author’s apartment and confiscated his private notebooks in 1926—but up until their confiscation Bulgakov wrote with a keen sense of both humor and realism about his day-to-day life as well as about the wider social and political context in which he lived and worked.
After his personal journals were confiscated, Bulgakov took to chronicling his thoughts in letters. These missives were written mostly to friends and family—but also to contemporaries such as fellow Soviet writers Gorky and Zamyatin, and even to Joseph Stalin—and are both bitingly funny and full of pain, mundane and sublime.
This selection of Bulgakov’s private diaries and correspondence gives modern readers a fascinating glimpse into a period of Russian history and literature that was simultaneously alive with creative energy and darkened by the iron grip of censorship.
The Alma Classics edition of Diaries and Selected Letters is translated by Roger Cockrell with the authorization of the Bulgakov Estate and Andrew Nurnberg Associates. Roger Cockrell, previously the Head of the University of Exeter’s Russian Department, has worked extensively on expert translations of Russian works such as Bulgakov’s other work, The White Guard. His translation reflects the clear, humorous, and profound language of the original with colloquial English idioms and phrasings. Readers without previous experience in Russian literature will find this translation to be accessible and fun, even though the subtext of Bulgakov’s works is the murky, mysterious underbelly of Soviet culture.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian playwright, novelist, and physician best known for his satirical classic, The Master and Margarita. Born in Kiev in 1891, Bulgakov was drawn to both literature and the theater from his early youth. As a young man, Bulgakov studied to become a doctor and volunteered with the Red Cross during the First World War. He practiced medicine for some years after WWI, and was eventually drafted as an army physician during the Russian Civil War. He contracted typhus and nearly died at his posting, and after a shaky recovery he began his professional transition from physician to playwright and author.
From 1919 until his death in 1940, his plays, short stories, and novels enjoyed degrees of critical and popular success, but Bulgakov also endured a great deal of criticism and censorship due to his propensity to mercilessly satirize the ethical and political shortcomings of life in the Soviet Union. His witty, biting, and frequently grotesque storytelling style caught the eye of Joseph Stalin, earning him some degree of political immunity. By the end of the 1920s, however, Bulgakov’s career had ground to a halt due to a government ban on the performance or publication of his work. Bulgakov’s relationship with Stalin protected him from arrest and execution, but he could not publish any of his works or stage his plays for the remaining years of his life.
Over the next decade, the ailing writer began work on The Master and Margarita, which would be his last major creative effort before his death. A brilliant satire of Soviet society, it was not published until 1966, 26 years after his death. Although he never experienced stable success and renown during his life, Bulgakov’s body of work is now firmly situated within the pantheon of great 20th century Russian literature and theater.
