Most Popular Books by Mikhail Bulgakov

Satan, Judas, a Soviet writer, and a talking black cat named Behemoth populate this satire, “a classic of twentieth-century fiction” (The New York Times). In 1930s Moscow, Satan decides to pay the good people of the Soviet Union a visit. In old Jerusalem, the fateful meeting of Pilate and Yeshua and the murder of Judas in the garden of Gethsemane unfold. At the intersection of fantasy and realism, satire and unflinching emotional truths, Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic The Master and Margarita eloquently lampoons every aspect of Soviet life under Stalin’s regime, from politics to art to religion, while interrogating the complexities between good and evil, innocence and guilt, and freedom and oppression. Spanning from Moscow to Biblical Jerusalem, a vibrant cast of characters—a “magician” who is actually the devil in disguise, a giant cat, a witch, a fanged assassin—sow mayhem and madness wherever they go, mocking artists, intellectuals, and politicians alike. In and out of the fray weaves a man known only as the Master, a writer demoralized by government censorship, and his mysterious lover, Margarita. Burned in 1928 by the author and restarted in 1930, The Master and Margarita was Bulgakov’s last completed creative work before his death. It remained unpublished until 1966—and went on to become one of the most well-regarded works of Russian literature of the twentieth century, adapted or referenced in film, television, radio, comic strips, theater productions, music, and opera.

A masterful translation of one of the great novels of the 20th century Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. Full of pungency and wit, this luminous work is Bulgakov''s crowning achievement, skilfully blending magical and realistic elements, grotesque situations and major ethical concerns. Written during the darkest period of Stalin''s repressive reign and a devastating satire of Soviet life, it combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with incident and with historical, imaginary, frightful and wonderful characters. Although completed in 1940, The Master and Margarita was not published until 1966 when the first section appeared in the monthly magazine Moskva. Russians everywhere responded enthusiastically to the novel''s artistic and spiritual freedom and it was an immediate and enduring success. This new translation has been made from the complete and unabridged Russian text.

A Kyiv family is caught up in the Ukrainian War of Independence in this novel by the author of The Master and Margarita, drawing from his own life. Reds, Whites, German troops, and Ukrainian nationalists battle for control of the city of Kyiv as the war becomes more tumultuous in Mikhail Bulgakov’s debut novel, The White Guard. Drawing heavily from the author’s own experiences in Ukraine during the period of the Russian Civil War—he witnessed ten changes of government himself—The White Guard is told from alternating points of view and takes an unusual angle in the conflict between Russian Whites (with whom the Turbin family identify) and Ukrainian nationalists. It elegantly portrays the chaos of a civil war in which there is no good or evil, only loyalty to one’s friends, family, and convictions. First appearing in partial form in a Soviet-era literary journal, the story was turned into a play under the title The Days of the Turbins—a long-running hit that Stalin himself attended twenty times—yet was not published widely until decades after Bulgakov’s death.

The Heart of a Dog is a novella that blends science fiction with sharp social commentary. The story centers on a stray dog named Sharik, who is taken in by a scientist, Professor Preobrazhensky. The professor performs an experimental surgery on Sharik, transplanting human organs into the dog, which causes Sharik to transform into a human-like creature named Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov. Sharikov''s transformation and subsequent behavior serve as a biting satire of the Soviet attempt to create a new socialist citizen. Sharikov becomes a crude, vulgar, and opportunistic character, embodying the worst traits of humanity. The novella explores themes of identity, the ethics of scientific experimentation, and the clash between nature and nurture.

This portrait of Molière, by Mikhail Bulgakov, goes far beyond mere biography. The Russian master brings a kindred spirit vividly to life in this novelistic story of art and the struggle it demands.

“Bulgakov’s strong point was his ability to amplify the roots of man’s dementia, the howls of political pandemonium . . . a lively collection.” —The Washington Post Book World Mikhail Bulgakov’s Diaboliad and Other Stories, comprised of Diaboliad, No. 13–The Elpit Workers’ Commune, A Chinese Tale, and The Adventures of Chichikov, serves as an excellent introduction to this renowned Russian satirist and playwright’s work. Black comedy, biting social and political commentary, and Bulgakov’s unique narrative exuberance combine to tell the tales of labyrinthine post-Revolution bureaucracy; clashes between science, the intellectual class, and the state; and the high price to be paid for the promised utopian world of Communism in early Soviet Russia. Bulgakov’s signature eloquent skewering of the various shortcomings of the world around and within him can be found on every page, and horror and magic interweave in a constant dance of the absurd—a dance that would reach its highest point both stylistically and thematically in Bulgakov’s tour de force novel The Master and Margarita. “One of the most original voices of the twentieth century.” —The Guardian, UK

Part autobiography, part fiction, this early work by the author of The Master and Margarita shows a master at the dawn of his craft, and a nation divided by centuries of unequal progress. In 1916 a 25-year-old, newly qualified doctor named Mikhail Bulgakov was posted to the remote Russian countryside. He brought to his position a diploma and a complete lack of field experience. And the challenges he faced didn’t end there: he was assigned to cover a vast and sprawling territory that was as yet unvisited by modern conveniences such as the motor car, the telephone, and electric lights. The stories in A Country Doctor’s Notebook are based on this two-year window in the life of the great modernist. Bulgakov candidly speaks of his own feelings of inadequacy, and warmly and wittily conjures episodes such as peasants applying medicine to their outer clothing rather than their skin, and finding himself charged with delivering a baby—having only read about the procedure in text books. Not yet marked by the dark fantasy of his later writing, this early work features a realistic and wonderfully engaging narrative voice—the voice, indeed, of twentieth century Russia’s greatest writer.

A dark, fantastical satire of Communist utopianism by the author of The Master and Margarita. Lauded Russian author and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov’s A Dog’s Heart (sometimes translated as The Heart of a Dog) is a zany, violent, and whimsical satire of the failures inherent in the dream of a Communist utopia, following dog-turned-human Sharik as he tries and fails utterly to live a life of goodness and virtue—but goodness and virtue as defined by whom? Both a nod to the Frankenstein myth and a vicious critique of the Soviet government’s attempts to reshape and redefine personhood during and after the Russian Revolution, A Dog’s Heart was rejected for publication by censors in 1925, but was circulated via samizdat—the clandestine production and distribution of literature that had been banned by the state—for years until it was translated into English in 1968. To this day, the book remains one of Bulgakov’s most highly regarded works.

This is Bulgakov''s semi-autobiographical story of a writer who fails to sell his novel and fails to commit suicide. When his play is taken up by the theatre, literary success beckons, but he has reckoned without the grotesquely inflated egos of the actors, directors and theatre managers.

As the turbulent years following the Russian revolution of 1917 settle down into a new Soviet reality, the brilliant and eccentric zoologist Persikov discovers an amazing ray that drastically increases the size and reproductive rate of living organisms. At the same time, a mysterious plague wipes out all the chickens in the Soviet republics. The government expropriates Persikov''s untested invention in order to rebuild the poultry industry, but a horrible mix-up quickly leads to a disaster that could threaten the entire world. This H. G. Wells-inspired novel by the legendary Mikhail Bulgakov is the only one of his larger works to have been published in its entirety during the author''s lifetime. A poignant work of social science fiction and a brilliant satire on the Soviet revolution, it can now be enjoyed by English-speaking audiences through this accurate new translation. Includes annotations and afterword.

Using a sharply realistic and humorous style, Bulgakov reveals his doubts about his own competence and the immense burden of responsibility, as he deals with a superstitious and poorly educated people struggling to enter the modern age. This acclaimed collection represents some of Bulgakov''s most personal and insightful observations on youth, isolation and progress.

Komarov Case is a famouse short story of ukraіnian wrighter Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov was a Soviet playwright, novelist, and short story writer best known for his humor and penetrating satire. Because of their realism and humor, Bulgakov’s works enjoyed great popularity, but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities.

When Maxudov''s bid to take his own life is unsuccessful, he dramatises the novel whose failure provoked the suicide attempt. To the resentment of literary Moscow, his play is accepted by the legendary "Independent Theatre" and Maxudov plunges into a vortex of inflated egos. With each rehearsal more sparks fly and the chances of the play being ready to perform recede. A brilliant satire on Bulgakov''s love-hate relationship with Stanislavsky, "Method-acting" and the Moscow Arts Theatre, Black Snow is the ultimate back-stage novel

This selection from the diaries and letters of the Bulgakovs, mostly translated for the first time into English, provides an insightful glimpse into a fascinating period of Russian history and literature, telling the tragic tale of the fate of an artist under a totalitarian regime. The career of Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of Master and Margarita - now regarded as one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century literature - was characterized by a constant and largely unsuccessful struggle against state censorship. This suppression did not only apply to his art: in 1926 his personal diary was seized by the authorities. From then on he confined his thoughts to letters to his friends and family, as well as to public figures such as Stalin and his fellow Soviet writer Gorky, while also encouraging his wife Yelena to keep a diary, with many entries influenced or even dictated by him.

Disappearances, destruction and death spread throughout Moscow like wildfire, and Margarita has discovered that her lover has vanished in the chaos. Making a bargain with the devil, she decides to try a little black magic of her own to save the man she loves.

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) required the dramatic and fictional forms "as the pianist needs both his left and his right hands." While he is best known here for his novels, in the U.S.S.R. he is also famous for his plays. Neither of the plays in this volume, Flight (1926-28) and Bliss (1934), was published until long after the author''s death. By 1929, his persistent refusal to conform to the demands of the Communist government and critics had led to a ban on all his work. Flight was not produced until 1957 and Bliss has never yet been produced. Flight incensed the critics because Bulgakov treated some of the Civil War''s Whites as suffering, doomed human beings rather than stock images of "the class enemy." This tragicomedy is dominated by the nightmare figure of General Khludov, both executioner and victim, disintegrating as his world disintegrates. Charnota, on the other hand, is the hyperbolic image of a man hellbent for destruction, descending from White Major General to penniless gambler in Constantinople''s cockroach races. In Bliss, for the first time in English translation, the engineer Rein travels to the past in his time machine and returns with Ivan the Terrible accidentally in tow. Four centuries ahead of his time, the Tsar is stranded in Rein''s attic, bellowing imprecations. The bureaucrat Bunsha (a former prince who, for security in a proletarian state, insists he is the illegitimate son of his father''s coachman) is foiled in efforts to report this tumultuous housing violation by an involuntary trip with Rein to the year 2222. A pickpocket, Miloslavsky, also transported to this serene, policeless future, weeps nostalgically before the museum effigy of a policeman.

Psalm is a famouse short story of ukraіnian wrighter Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov was a Soviet playwright, novelist, and short story writer best known for his humor and penetrating satire. Because of their realism and humor, Bulgakov’s works enjoyed great popularity, but their trenchant criticism of Soviet mores was increasingly unacceptable to the authorities.