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Lesley Milne. Mikhail Bulgakov: a Critical Biography

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Lesley Milne. Mikhail Bulgakov: a Critical Biography Lesley Milne. Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. xiv, 324 pp. Lesley Milne'sMikhail Bulgakoa: ACritical Biograph.y, although not the first critical biography of Bulgakov, is timely for at least three reasons. First, it became available just before Bulgakov's centenary; second, its concise form makes the book useful for most courses on Bulgakov and Soviet literature of the period; third, the quality of the writing and the presentation of new data on Bulgakov for English speakingstudents and scholars make this biography valuable. Milne considers Bulgakov as a writer of the 1920s and 1930s. By doing so, she breaks with the myth of Bulgakov as a "contemporary" writer, as he is perceived in present day Russia. Making use of well-researched data, Milne carefully traces Bulgakov's difficult path to "brilliance" ("brilliant" is a favorite adjective in Bulgakov's lexicon). Bulgakov's early years have been described in detail in substantial biographies by M. Chudakova, E. Proffer, and C. Wright. This must be the reason why Milne pays little attention to the writer's childhood and starts her investigation with his creative years, i. e., from 1921. That year he left medicine for good and devoted himself to literature. Concentrating on the years from 1921 to 1940 (the year of his death), Milne closely follows changes in Bulgakov's personal and creative life with a strong accent on the latter. The book is well illustrated and organized. It consists often chapters, title of each signaling a landmark in Bulgakov's literary career and dealing with a specific literary work. The first chapter, "Legendary Times and Strange Adventures: The Formative Years," surveys and comments on other biogra- phies of Bulgakov. Milne thoroughly analyzes Bulgakov's early stories in this chapter. She connects them closely to his medical training and suggests that writer's satisfaction with his early work helped him to make the choice between medicine and writing. In the second chapter, "A Calling without Distinction: Journalism, Jottings andNoteson Shirt-Cu ffs,"the reader is confronted with the dilemma that Bulgakov faced after he had decided to become a writer. In order to survive the author had to do what he actually did not like to do: journalism and literary administration. These two occupations, however, brought needed cash and enabled him to continue with what he called a "genuine" work. He considered Notes on Shirt-Cuffs one of the best possible examples of such writings. "When Empires Fall: Diaboliada and Heart of a Dog," the next chapter in Milne's work, starts with 1925 when the first volume of five stories was published under the titleDi�boliurla. The collection was immediately noticed by Evgenii Zamiatin, whose favorable opinion was not shared by others (only one more positive review appeared). Bulgakov's next story, the now famous Heart of a Dog, was not even published. Milne suggests that this story is a typical example of "high comedy" and notes a number of details that corre- spond with Gogol's style. She sees Heart of a Dog as the beginning of the end of Bulgakov's dream of being published regularly. The fourth chapter, "The Heavenly City: The While Guard," deals primarily with Bulgakov's first novel, a work dear to his heart because of all the hardships he went through before it was published in Paris in 1929 in a form that satisfied him. The next chapter is dedicated to Bulgakov's work for the Moscow Art Theater. It is called "A Dramatic Debut: The Days of the Turblns and Zoyka's Apartment." It contains a detailed analysis ofthe play, which is actually based on the novel The White Guard. Like most critics, Milne considers The Day of the Turbins a turning point not only in Bulgakov's career, but in the destiny of the MAT as well. By 1925 this theater was in great need of contemporary plays. In the same month another of Bulgakov's plays, Zoyka's Apartment, which opened in the Vakhtangov Studio, was staged. Despite the smaller stage and many other problems, Zoyka's Apartment was as successful as The Day of the Turbins and evoked much interest from other theaters, most notably the Kamerny Theater and the "revolutionary" Meierkhofd theater. In the sixth chapter, "Brilliant Work: A Country Doctor's Notebook," Milne agrees with Vladimir Lakshin that all nine of Bulgakov's "medical stories" are autobiographical. These stories also confirm Bulgakov's interest In the intelligentsia with their "stubborn depiction of the intelligentsia as the best stratum of our populace." In each story Bulgakov sympathizes with the doctor more than the people. The next chapter, "The Race of Life: Flight," is am additional proof of the strength of tradition among the intelligentsia. Probably because of this feature the play, which was never staged, became Bulgakov's favorite. In "The Tinseled Mantle: Crimson Island, The Engineer's Hoof, Moliere and the Year of the Catastrophe," Milne deals with the years 1928-29 when Bulgakov's fame and fortune were about to come to an end. Thus Bulgakov's successful literary career not surprisingly coincided with the NEP period. "All in the Wrong Direction: Unperformed Plays and Unpublished Novels 1930-1939" is the title of the next chapter. During the course of these years Bulgakov never stopped writing and never was published. He was not silent about his misfortune and expressed it clearly in three of his letters to Stalin. One of those letters got a response with the famous telephone call from Stalin bringing temporary relief to the Bulgakovs. Mikhail Bulgakov was given a post as assistant director of the Moscow Art Theater, which lasted until 1936. Many of Bulgakov's adaptations for the theater were not staged; others that were performed were severely cut. His own play Adam and Eve, written in 1931, showed as much literary maturity as Bulgakov's masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, started in 1928, but was not published in the USSR until 1987. The story ofhis lastmasterpiece and its analysis are the subject of the last ch apter of Milne's book "The Sunset Novel: The Master and Margarita." Milne points to some convincing parallels with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and .
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