Introduction
Some books can never be read, deciphered, solved to the end. It seems to me that Mikhail Bulgakov's best prose, especially his latest works, is one of them.
M.A.Bulgakov did not write philosophical works as such. This applies not only to him but also to all Russian writers who created Russian philosophy through their literary works.
Let's imagine ourselves in front of a mirror, or better yet, surrounded by many mirrors. Everything is as if in the palm of our hand, but something is eternally slipping away, and we want to look beyond this endless wall. To cross the fatal line to learn, to consider yourself to the very end, to understand the mystery of being. For millennia we have been unable to grasp the boundaries of the human soul. Before daze, people stare into their own ''reflection'' until their own I fade in the universe so that everything would come back again, but no longer with me, no longer with me, no longer with me, and no longer with me.
Isn't that the nature and magic of a great writer's talent? It is as if a magician surrounded by thousands of mirrors finds the lines of other people's destinies, absorbs them into himself, and then throws it under the hammer of the coming being. This is how the author himself dies, and the fate of his works begins.
Formation of M.A.Bulgakov's philosophy. In 1921 Bulgakov moved to Moscow. From now on, this multifaceted city will become a source of its original poetic and satirical creativity. Bulgakov begins to write. He dates the beginning of his literary activity very precisely: February 15, 1920
Feuilletons and stories of the young writer are published in the capital's newspapers and magazines, are published separately.
By that time Bulgakov already departed from his medical activity (in 1916 he was "approved in the degree of the doctor with honors"), and completely gives himself to literary creativity. Early stories and stories. Bulgakov had success with readers but met and harsh criticism, which accused the writer of "malignancy" and "new bourgeois moods. This caused him many troubles and disappointments.
Writer's days were given to newspaper work for earnings, evening and night - for the soul, where a serious Bulgakov prose ripened. Along with the writing of satirical novels ("Notes on the cuffs", "The Devil's Day"), he created in 1922-1924, his first great novel "White Guard".
In the same years, Bulgakov wrote stories about the civil war. As a rule, they were branches of the main romantic trunk. It is easy, for example, to find such a connection, comparing the story "I killed" with scenes from the "White Guard", which describes the atrocities of the Petlyurovites in Kyiv.
Mikhail Bulgakov had not only a satirical but also a rare lyrical gift, which was, perhaps, the main musical tone of his prose. The novel "White Guard", drawing the history of the Kyiv Turbins family, the end of the white movement in Ukraine, in its style combines the features of a poetic epos and subtle psychological writing. Later this novel will turn under Bulgakov's pen into the play "Days of the Turbins" (1926), which will be staged by the Moscow Art Theatre. It will bring the writer wide popularity.
Bulgakov continues to work on his literary masterpieces. He writes such famous works as "Zoikina's apartment" "Running" and others. All these works are impregnated with sharp satire so that they are not once banned, then again resolved and so many times.
But in Bulgakov's works of satire is very closely intertwined with some supernatural forces, often even in phantasmagoria. A clear confirmation of this is the story "The Devil's Day". The content of "The Devil's Day" - the fate of a little man, a common screw of the bureaucratic machine, who at some point fell out of its nest, lost among its gears and drives, and rushed among them, trying to get caught up in the common course again, until he went mad. Not even this little official, though he is the central figure, the machine itself, which does not produce anything and only chews its paper gum vigorously, is the main character in the story. Its bubbling uterine life, the meaning of which can not be unraveled, as if in the accelerated footage of some crazy movie runs in front of the eyes of the reader. "The Devil's Day" was not fully appreciated by Bulgakov's friends or enemies. She was noticed and generally praised by one of the greatest masters of literature E. Zamyatin. But in general, it seemed to him shallow and "very thoughtless. Meanwhile, there is something in it that the current reader cannot help but appreciate at the highest level. First of all, the story of the hero, a "gentle, quiet blonde" Korotkov, allows us to see and almost physically feel the helplessness and powerlessness of an ordinary person before the power of a self-nourished and self-adjusting bureaucratic apparatus.