May 15, 1891

Mikhail Bulgakov (May 15, 1891 to March 10, 1940) 'was a Russian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer best known for his use of humor and satire. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine, on May 15, 1891, and graduated from the Medical School of Kiev University in 1916. He served as a field doctor during World War I. Bulgakov's association with the Moscow Art Theater began in 1926 with the production of his play The Days of the Turbins, which was based on his novel The White Guard. His work was popular, but since it ridiculed the Soviet establishment, was frequently censored. His satiric novel The Heart of a Dog was not published openly in the U.S.S.R. until 1987. ....'

It is his novel, The Master and Margarita, a Faustian fantasy both comic and so threatening to the Soviet regime that it could not be published til after Bulgakov's death, that has been acclaimed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. The opening scenes involve a "vagrant philosopher" accosting a group of chattering intellectuals. Soon a feline appears.Many editions have a picture of him on the cover. The cat is introduced this way in the translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O'Connor:

'Ivan groaned, looked into the distance and saw the hateful stranger....[who] wasn't alone...[Another] member of the company, who had appeared out of nowhere, turned out to be a cat, big as a hog and pitch-black, like a crow or like soot, and sporting a mustache like a reckless cavalryman's. The threesome set off...with the cat walking on its hind legs. '

Stalin had praised Bulgakov in the 1920's. As the brutality of the regime manifested itself, Bulgakov worked in secret and often despair.