A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov

In 1916, Bulgakov graduated from the Medical Department of Kiev University and after serving as a surgeon at Chernovtsy hospital, was appointed provincial physician to Smolensk province. Morphine, a book released in 1926, is his account of that trying period. In 1918, he abandoned morphine and never used it again.

Over the next year his addiction grew stronger. To suppress chronic pain, especially in the abdomen, he injected himself with morphine. Bulgakov's suffering from these wounds had deleterious long-term effects. At the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered with the Red Cross as a medical doctor and was sent directly to the front, where he was badly injured at least twice. He then took a position as a physician at the Kiev Military Hospital. After graduation from the Gymnasium in 1909, Bulgakov entered the Medical Faculty of Kiev University, which he finished with special commendation. After the death of his father in 1907, Mikhail's mother, a well-educated and extraordinarily diligent person, assumed responsibility for his education. The teachers of the Gymnasium exerted a great influence on the formation of his literary taste. In 1901 Bulgakov joined the First Kiev Gymnasium, where he developed an interest in Russian and European literature (his favourite authors at the time being Gogol, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, and Dickens), theatre and opera. At home, he wrote comedies, which his brothers and sisters acted out. From childhood Bulgakov was drawn to theater. However, there's no mention of it in Bulgakov's collection of works, so the source of the claims is unclear. Haber, in his «autobiographical remarks» Bulgakov stated that she was a descendant of Tartar hordes, which supposedly influenced some of his works.

Varvara Bulgakova was born in Karachev, Russia. Afanasiy Bulgakov was born in Bryansk Oblast, Russia, where his father was a priest, and he moved to Kiev to study in the academy. Both of his grandfathers were clergymen in the Russian Orthodox Church. His mother was Varvara Mikhailovna Bulgakova ( nee Pokrovskaya), a former teacher. He was one of the seven children (the oldest of three brothers) of Afanasiy Ivanovich Bulgakov (ru) - a state councilor, an assistant professor at the Kiev Theological Academy, as well as a prominent Russian Orthodox essayist, thinker and translator of religious texts. Mikhail Bulgakov was born on 15 May 1891 in Kiev, Kiev Governorate of the Russian Empire, into a Russian family.

A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov