[Mikhail Bulgakov--a colleague and cult figure]

Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) was medically qualified, but practised as a doctor only a few years before he launched on a full time career as a writer. His writings are marked by exuberant satire and burlesque phantasy, a genre condemned anti-Sovietic. Throughout his writing life, Bulgakov found it extremely difficult to get his writings published. He did not become known to the reading public inside and outside USSR until 30 years after his death.