Mikhail Bulgakov was born on May 3, 1891 in Kiev in the family of the associate professor of the Kiev Theological Academy Afanasy Ivanovich Bulgakov and his wife Varvara Mikhailovna. In 1916 he graduated from the medical faculty of the university and worked as a doctor. During the civil war in February 1919, Bulgakov was mobilized as a military doctor in the army of the Ukrainian People's Republic, but almost immediately deserted. In the same year he managed to visit a doctor in the Red Army, and then in the White Guard Armed Forces of the South of Russia. He spends some time with the Cossack troops in Chechnya, then in Vladikavkaz. Later, his impressions and thoughts about the war will be embodied in the novel "Run" and the play "Days of the Turbines".
Bulgakov decides to leave the profession of a doctor, because he is more and more attracted to writing. And in 1921 he moved to Moscow, where he finally got the full opportunity to study literature. At first, the creative destiny develops very well. His novels are read, and his plays are staged on the stage of the famous Moscow Art Theater. In 1923, Bulgakov even joined the All-Russian Writers' Union, but this circumstance did not save him from future disgrace.
He always had his own point of view on the processes taking place in the country, which often did not coincide with the official one.
It got to the point that the NKVD established secret surveillance for the writer.
Then Bulgakov decided to take extreme measures - in 1930 he wrote a letter to the Government of the USSR with a request to determine his fate. He wanted to get the right to emigrate, or permission to work as an assistant director at the Moscow Art Academy. And then an absolutely incredible thing happens - Stalin himself calls Bulgakov personally and recommends that the playwright apply with a request to enroll him as an assistant director at the Moscow Art Theater. But Bulgakov did not have time to apply to the Art Theater - he was called from there and invited to work. In May 1930, he was hired as a director, where he successfully worked for six years.
In 1936 the writer finished his most famous novel The Master and Margarita, which he had been writing for over ten years. Disputes about this work do not subside to this day. It is called the most mystical and mysterious book of the 20th century.
Every attempt to film this fantastic novel or put it on stage 'is accompanied by truly the tricks of Satan. Dark forces come into real life to prevent people from interfering in their world. It seems that he can only exist in the form of a book, the apotheosis of which is the scene of the ball at Satan.
According to the recollections of the third wife of the writer, Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova, in the description of the great ball at Satan's, the author's real impressions of the reception at the American embassy in Moscow on April 22, 1935 were reflected. Once a year, the US Ambassador, William Bullitt, hosted large receptions for the national holiday. For a half-footed writer, which was then already Bulgakov, the reception at the American embassy was an almost incredible event, comparable to a ball at Satan's: at that time, Soviet graphic propaganda depicted on posters "American imperialism" in the guise of the devil.
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As Elena Bulgakova recalls: “The dinner was served in a dining room specially attached for this ball to the embassy's mansion, on separate tables. In the corners of the dining room - small pastures, on them - kids, lambs, bears. On the walls - cages with roosters. At three o'clock the harmonics began to play and the roosters began to sing. Style "russ". A lot of tulips, roses - from Holland. On the top floor there is a barbecue. Red roses, red French wine. Downstairs there is champagne and cigarettes everywhere."
In the novel, Bulgakov intertwines real signs of the ambience of the American ambassador's residence with imaginary details and images. In order to accommodate Satan's great ball in a "bad apartment", the author increased the number of dimensions from the traditional four to five. And in the fifth dimension, the giant halls where the ball takes place became visible, while the participants of the ball, on the contrary, are invisible to others.
Having abundantly decorated the ballrooms with roses in the novel, Bulgakov took into account the symbolism associated with this flower. So, for example, in the cultural tradition of Western European
the peoples of antiquity and the Middle Ages, roses were the personification of both mourning and love, purity. So roses at Satan's ball are also a symbol of Margarita's love for the Master. On the other hand, they also serve as a harbinger of the imminent death of lovers. In general, the abundance of roses as flowers alien to the Russian literary tradition emphasizes the foreign origin of Woland and his retinue.
Bulgakov likens Margarita to one of the French queens who lived in the 16th century - Margaret of Navarre and Margarita of Valois. But since Margarita Valois was childless, Bulgakov made his heroine a relative of Margarita of Navarre, who had offspring. Both historical Margaritas patronized writers and poets, and therefore Bulgakov's Margarita turns out to be associated with the genius Master, whose return from the hospital she is seeking after a ball with Satan.
There are different versions of the prototypes of the main characters of the novel. Conventionally, they could be called a romantic version and a realistic one. The latter was put forward by literary critics on the basis of a thorough analysis of the text and the historical situation in which the novel was created.
According to this version, the prototype of the Master is Gorky, Margarita is the actress Maria Andreeva, his common-law wife. Well, in the romantic version, Margarita is Bulgakov's last wife Elena Sergeevna Nurenberg, and the Master is Bulgakov himself.
The love that suddenly broke out between them forced them to destroy families and disregard conventions in order to forever connect their lives. Elena Sergeevna devoted herself entirely to her husband and fulfilled the promise she made to Bulgakov at the beginning of their union. "Give me your word that I will die in your arms," he asked her. And so it happened. At the end of 1939, his health deteriorated sharply. The writer suffered from severe headaches to such an extent that he practically lost his sight and barely made out the sunlight. At the beginning of winter Bulgakov went to the Barvikha sanatorium, but there he did not feel better either. He died on March 10, 1940. Elena Sergeevna outlived her spouse for thirty long years. She passed away at the age of seventy-six on July 18, 1970. She was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery, next to her beloved Master.
During the life of the author, the novel was never published. It was first published only in 1966, 26 years after the death of the writer. Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova kept the manuscript despite the troubled and difficult times of general repression.
Source: “Interesting newspaper. Oracle №8. L. Alexandrova