Mikhail Bulgakov - with Modigliani and Baudelaire

Mikhail Bulgakov - with Modigliani and Baudelaire at background. Experimental essay - an attempt of a comparative partial biographical reconstruction.


1. A cultural atmosphere and a transition to the lifestyle of a creative person.

The biography of Mikhail Bulgakov demonstrates an interesting riddle.

A person who grew up in a prosperous, cultured family, who started a family, who married,after a while brings cocaine and tries it with his wife. Further - a separate story of getting into addiction to morphine and of liberation from this addiction.

If you focus on the biography of Mikhail Bulgakov, written by Alexei Varlamov, on biographical collections - collections of memoirs about Bulgakov, then this circumstance does not surprise anyone ...

However, this is an odd turn of events. Cultural parents, happy family, material security - "a careless, a sorrowless young generation" "in the gardens of the most beautiful city of our Motherland" ...

What is the reason for the appearance of drugs in the life of Mikhail Bulgakov?

For comparison, let us refer to the biographies of the sculptor and artist Amedeo Modigliani and the poet Charles Baudelaire.

Young Amedeo Modigliani fell seriously ill, the mother, frightened by the illness, did not create any obstacles for her son's movement along the creative path. On the contrary, she was helping Amedeo Modigliani, who became an outwardly unsuccessful creative figure.

Upon gaining his degree in 1839, young Charles Baudelaire told his brother "I don't feel I have a vocation for anything." After overcoming some family resistance, Charles Baudelaire devoted himself to creativity.

In the part of the biography of Mikhail Bulgakov, which is devoted to his youth, we find his inclination to engage in art and attempts to take the path of a creative person.

Biographical materials tell us practically nothing about the family's resistance. There are practically no people around Bulgakov who could support his desire to take the path of a creative person. At the same time, there were enough people among his family members and among his relatives who would support his decision to become a doctor, a civil servant.

Mikhail Bulgakov enters the medical faculty of Kiev University. An unattractive, painful (for Mikhail Bulgakov) studies begins.

After two years of study, hesitation intensified. But at that moment there were plans to start a family with Tatiana Lappa [Lithuanian surname; stress on the second syllable]. The family of the future wife stubbornly resisted the marriage, considering Mikhail Bulgakov not ready to create a family.

Termination of studies at the medical faculty would put an end to plans to start a family with Tatiana Lappa.

He had to continue his studies at the medical faculty. The successful completion of his studies may have been facilitated by the First World War. The country needed doctors. In 1909, Mikhail Bulgakov entered the medical faculty of Kiev University, and in 1916, after a long period of practical work as a doctor, he received a diploma confirming the "degree of doctor with honors."

A painful study in university, a painful, difficult work ... The feeling of a “wrong life”, of a wrong way of life, may have been one of the reasons for the appearance of drugs in the life of Mikhail Bulgakov. After changing a road, after taking the path of a creative person, Bulgakov managed to free himself from addiction.


2. A military experience and a verification - features of the creative path in Russia.

In the biographies of the most famous Russian writers - Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Sholokhov, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and others - we find:

A) the phenomenon of the verification of cultural significance,
B) a participation in hostilities.

The profession of a doctor allowed Mikhail Bulgakov to participate in hostilities in the most humane format.

After moving to Moscow, Mikhail Bulgakov had (at different periods of his life) personal conversations with Nadezhda Krupskaya (in her office) and with Joseph Stalin (by phone). In addition, Stalin repeatedly spoke positively about the work of Bulgakov. So the combat experience was complemented by the verification of cultural significance.

In the biographies of Amedeo Modigliani and Charles Baudelaire, we find neither combat experience nor the verification of the cultural significance.

They "just" lived by the life of creative people, by the life, usual for Paris ...


3. A creative path and financial basis.

If we assume that fate directed Mikhail Bulgakov on the path of the doctor, then we should recognize the strategic usefulness of such a decision for Bulgakov.

Bulgakov's pre-revolutionary contemporaries - Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky - walked to the writer's fame   and to financial well-being along a long long-term path.

A writings gave a precarious, shaky, erratic income.

Only at the peak of political fame, at a unique political moment, Maxim Gorky not only received significant sums for his literary works, but also pulled other writers out of relative poverty (for example, Leonid Andreev). ( "Leonid Andreyev has received 5642 rubles for the first book (instead of 300 rubles which the competing publisher Sytin promised to pay). Such a payment of honorarium has made - at once -  Andreyev (man, who was needing in means) a wealthy man)."

Theater royalties from plays staging were a more reliable source of income. Reports on a total sold-outs of tickets were a profitable thing  for theatres. - Theaters were interested in a sold-out reports. And the number of seats in the theater, the number of performances and the cost of tickets were, in general, widely known ...

A situation about a duration of writer's career changed after 1917. The themes have changed, the writers have changed ...

A window of opportunity has emerged ...

During the NEP years [approximately twentieth years of the 20th century], Mikhail Bulgakov was, in general, financially safe. His second wife, for example, kept (on shares with another amateur) a horse for riding for some time.

In 1934, Maxim Gorky began to create a system of creative unions in the USSR. These unions made creative people partly government employees. At the same time, these alliances have contributed to the financial stability of artists, оf creative figures.

For a number of reasons, the financial position of Amedeo Modigliani and Charles Baudelaire has never been stable.

“… In one of the Arbat lanes, the construction of a writers' cooperative was already underway, of which Mikhail Afanasyevich was a member, and all his savings were “devoured by Nashchokinskiy lane, in which the house is being built” (Alexei Varlamov, “Mikhail Bulgakov”). In 1934 the apartment was received. If we assume that the price of cooperative apartments  - for the members of the cooperative (privileged people) - about 10 percent of the market price (of such apartments), then it can be said with a degree of convention that the apartment was received by Mikhail Bulgakov free of charge (contributions to the cooperative can be attributed to the total running everyday costs).

Neither Amedeo Modigliani nor Charles Baudelaire didn't receive a free apartments in the center of Paris.


4. A summation.

Comparison of the algorithms for moving along the creative path shows the features of the general cultural basis of professional creative development in Russia - the presence of military experience and the verification of the cultural significance were essential for success. In the period from about 1934 to 1991, the social and financial position of artists, of creative people in the USSR was significantly influenced by creative unions and their structures.


[MDCLXXX. Belinsky, emperors Alexander II, Alexander III, the phenomenon of verification and approving of cultural significance, the figure of Maxim Gorky, the First Congress of Soviet Writers. A cultural and historical essay. - August 30, 2020.]


September 18, 2020 07:00


Translation from Russian into English: September 18, 2020 06:30.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский “Михаил Булгаков на фоне Модильяни и Бодлера. Опыт сравнительной частичной биографической реконструкции”.