Editing Mikhail Bulgakov (section)

===Career===
Bulgakov had expressed his desire to be a writer as early as 1912 or 1913, when he showed his sister Nadezhda his first attempt at a story, called ''The Fiery Serpent'' ({{langx|ru|Огненный змий}}), about an alcoholic who dies in a fit of [[delirium tremens]], and stated to her that he planned to be a writer.{{sfn|Chudakova|2023|p=60}}{{sfn|Bulgakova|Lyandres|1988|p=114}} According to his first wife, he first began to consistently write in [[Vyazma]], where at nights he would work on a story called ''The Green Serpent'' ({{langx|ru|Зеленый змий}}).{{sfn|Bulgakova|Lyandres|1988|p=114}}

After his illness, Bulgakov abandoned his medical practice to pursue writing. Bulgakov in his autobiography wrote that he abandoned medicine for writing in early 1920; according to his friend {{ill|Pavel Popov|ru|Попов, Павел Сергеевич}}, Bulgakov abandoned medicine for good on 15 February 1920. At this time, he was in [[Vladikavkaz]].{{sfn|Yanovskaya|1983|p=57}} His first book was an [[almanac]] of [[feuilleton]]s called ''Future Perspectives'', written and published the same year. He wrote and saw his first two plays, ''Self Defence'' and ''The Turbin Brothers'', being produced for the city theater stage with great success.<ref name="timeline"/><ref name="congress"/>

[[File:Bulgakov1910s.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Bulgakov in 1916]]

After travelling through the Caucasus, Bulgakov headed for Moscow, intending "to remain here forever". It was difficult to find work in the capital, but he was appointed secretary to the literary section of Glavpolitprosvet (Central Committee of the Republic for Political Education).<ref name="congress"/> In September 1921, Bulgakov and his wife settled near [[Patriarshy Ponds|Patriarch's Ponds]], on [[Bulgakov House (Moscow)|Bolshaya Sadovaya street, 10]]. To make a living, he started working as a correspondent and [[feuilletons]] writer for the newspapers ''Gudok'', ''Krasnaia Panorama'' and ''Nakanune'', based in Berlin.<ref name="congress"/> For the almanac ''Nedra'', he wrote  ''Diaboliad'', ''[[The Fatal Eggs]]'' (1924), and ''[[Heart of a Dog]]'' (1925), works that combined bitter satire and elements of science fiction and were concerned with the fate of a scientist and the misuse of his discovery.

Between 1922 and 1926, Bulgakov wrote several plays (including ''[[Zoyka's Apartment]]''), none of which were allowed production at the time.<ref name="timeline"/> ''[[Flight (play)|The Run]]'', treating the horrors of a fratricidal war, was personally banned by [[Joseph Stalin]] after the Glavrepertkom (Department of Repertoire) decided that it "glorified emigration and [[White movement|White]] generals".<ref name="congress"/> In the spring of 1924, Bulgakov divorced Tatyana Lappa.{{sfn|Yanovskaya|1983|p=45}} The next year, he married Lyubov Belozerskaya.

When one of Moscow's theatre directors severely criticised Bulgakov, Stalin personally protected him, saying that a writer of Bulgakov's quality was above "party words" like "left" and "right".<ref>[[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], p. 110. swedish edition of ''Stalin: The Red Tsar and His Court''.</ref> Stalin found work for the playwright at a small Moscow theatre, and next the [[Moscow Art Theatre]] (MAT). Bulgakov's first major work was the novel ''[[The White Guard]]'' (Belaya gvardiya [Белая гвардия]), serialized in 1925 but never published in book form.<ref name="Bulgakov's_first_work_britannika">[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Bulgakov Mikhail Bulgakov's biography on britannica] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210402174117/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Bulgakov |date=2 April 2021 }} Bulgakov's first work was Belaya gvardiya (The White Guard)</ref> 
On 5 October 1926, ''[[The Days of the Turbins]]'', the play which continued the theme of ''The White Guard'' (the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil war) was premiered at the MAT.<ref name="timeline"/> Stalin liked it very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times.<ref name="StalinTheDaysoftheTurbins_chayka_org"/><ref name="stalin-s-secret-love-affair-with-the-white-guard_standard_co_uk"/>

His plays ''[[Ivan Vasilievich (play)|Ivan Vasilievich]]'' (Иван Васильевич), ''Don Quixote'' (Дон Кихот) and ''Last Days'' (Последние дни [Poslednie Dni], also called ''Pushkin'') were banned. The premier of another, [[The Cabal of Hypocrites|''Moliėre'' (also known as ''The Cabal of Hypocrites'')]], about the [[Molière|French dramatist]] in which Bulgakov plunged "into fairy Paris of the XVII century", received bad reviews in ''[[Pravda]]'' and the play was withdrawn from the theater repertoire.<ref name="congress"/> In 1928, ''Zoyka's Apartment'' and ''The Purple Island'' were staged in Moscow; both comedies were accepted by the public with great enthusiasm, but critics again gave them bad reviews.<ref name="congress"/> By March 1929, Bulgakov's career was ruined when  Government censorship stopped the publication of any of his work and his plays.<ref name="timeline"/>

In despair, Bulgakov first wrote a personal letter to Joseph Stalin (July 1929), then on 28 March 1930, a letter to the Soviet government.<ref name="letter">{{cite web| url  =http://lib.ru/BULGAKOW/b_letter.txt| script-title  =ru:Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков. Письмо правительству СССР| publisher  =lib.ru/Новый мир, 1987, N8.| access-date  =10 October 2011| language  =ru| archive-date  =31 October 2019| archive-url  =https://web.archive.org/web/20191031233327/http://lib.ru/BULGAKOW/b_letter.txt| url-status  =live}}</ref> He requested permission to emigrate if the Soviet Union could not find use for him as a writer.<ref name="congress"/> In his autobiography, Bulgakov claimed to have written to Stalin out of desperation and mental anguish, never intending to post the letter. He received a phone call directly from the Soviet leader, who asked the writer whether he really desired to leave the Soviet Union. Bulgakov replied that a Russian writer cannot live outside of his homeland. Stalin gave him permission to continue working at the Art Theater; on 10 May 1930,<ref name="timeline"/> he re-joined the theater, as stage director's assistant. Later he adapted [[Gogol]]'s ''[[Dead Souls]]'' for stage.

In 1932, Bulgakov married for the third time, to Yelena Shilovskaya, who would prove to be inspiration for the character Margarita in ''The Master and Margarita'', which he started working on in 1928.<ref name="congress"/>  During the last decade of his life, Bulgakov continued to work on ''The Master and Margarita'', wrote plays, critical works, and stories and made several translations and dramatisations of novels. Many of them were not published, others were "torn to pieces" by critics. Much of his work (ridiculing the Soviet system) stayed in his desk drawer for several decades. The refusal of the authorities to let him work in the theatre and his desire to see his family who were living abroad, whom he had not seen for many years, led him to seek drastic measures{{Clarify|date=February 2011}}. Despite his new work, the projects he worked on at the theatre were often prohibited, and he was stressed and unhappy.