ミハイル・ブルガーコフ（1891–1940）は、現在のウクライナにあたるキーウに生まれたロシア語の小説家・劇作家。医師として働いたのち執筆を始めたが、ソ連社会を風刺した作品の多くは出版や上演を制限された。ロシア革命後のキーウを舞台にした長編『白衛軍』（The White Guard）では、支配勢力が次々と入れ替わる街で、トゥルビン家のきょうだいが戦乱に巻き込まれていく。科学実験を通じて新しい人間をつくろうとする風刺小説『犬の心臓』（Heart of a Dog）では、医師に拾われた野良犬が手術で人間の姿になり、やがて医師自身を困らせる存在となる。晩年に書き続けた『巨匠とマルガリータ』（The Master and Margarita）では、悪魔とその一行がモスクワに騒動を起こす一方、文壇に傷つけられた作家と、彼を愛するマルガリータの物語が進む。この作品は生前に発表されなかった。
Mikhail Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a Russian-language novelist and playwright born in Kyiv, in present-day Ukraine. He worked as a doctor before turning to writing, but Soviet authorities restricted the publication and performance of many of his satirical works. His novel of Kyiv after the Russian Revolution, “The White Guard,” follows the Turbin siblings as successive armed forces fight for control of their city. In the satirical novella “Heart of a Dog,” a doctor turns a stray dog into a human through surgery, only to find himself at odds with his creation. In “The Master and Margarita,” which Bulgakov continued writing near the end of his life, the devil and his companions cause havoc in Moscow while a writer damaged by the literary establishment and the woman who loves him face their own troubles. The novel was not published during Bulgakov’s lifetime.
