Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography

by Lesley Milne

When it was published this was the full, post-glasnost critical biography of Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940), a great comic writer whose works are regarded as modern classics. This account of Bulgakov's career as playwright and prose-writer examines all his works in the context of the changing demands put upon artists in the Soviet Union of the 1920s and 1930s, who were faced with the choice of integrity at the price of silence, or publication and production at the price of conformty with the totalitarian state. Lesley Milne traces through Bulgakov's career an ethical concept of the writer's role, his response to his time, and his search for an audience in and beyond that time.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Russia, Literary Criticism

340 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 1990

Reviews

[Trevor Durham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally from 1990, Milne sadly did not have access to documents the post-Soviet collapse offered. That being said, this is a strong and useful biography for those looking into the last century's strongest prose writer- brief, well-supported, and straight-forward, Milne's delivery provides a wonderful narrative for those looking to get in. Anyone who has other research into his life may not find many refreshing or useful new information that the collapse would offer, but nonetheless, a nice work.