Bulgakov was born in Kiev in 1891. His interest in literature and
theatre came early, though he went on to study medicine. As a physician,
he worked at the Kiev Military Hospital.
Bulgakovís service in World War I, during which he served as a doctor,
resulted in injury. To treat the pain, he frequently injected himself
with morphine. This soon led to an addiction to the drug, something he
would write about at length in his 1926 book, Morphine.
In addition to his service during World War I, Bulgakov also worked as a
doctor throughout the Russian Civil War and in the Ukrainian Peopleís
Army. However, his own ill health put an early end to his medical
career. He went on to write about his experience as a doctor in Country
Bulgakovís wok as a writer during the 1920s was dominated by satire,
though he also worked as a correspondent for several newspapers. He
began writing plays in that decade, though a number were banned by the
Soviet government. While his plays of Don Quixote and Ivan Vasilievich
were banned, his Moliere (The Cabal of Hypocrites) was critically panned
Feeling unable to work properly as a writer in this situation, Bulgakov
appealed directly to Stalin in 1929, asking to be allowed to emigrate if
he could not work as a writer in Russia. However, he remained in Russia,
working for the Bolshoi Theatre for some time in the 1930s.
Throughout the 1930s, and up until his death in 1940, he worked on his
most famous novel, The Master and Margarita, which was published in
several posthumous versions.