Famous Russian Writers Who Were Also Great Doctors

The most known and famous Russian writer with a medical education was – Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

He wrote stories and novels already in the school but after it, he, even so, went to a medical faculty at Moscow State University, where he had great teachers such as Babuhin and Sklifosofsky (one of the most remarkable doctors of those times). In a free from studies time, he was writing humoristic stories for some small magazines and newspapers. After receiving the diploma, he decided to start his own practice instead of working in the city hospital where he actually had practice in the studying process. But things went very hard, he always was in a crucial financial situation, with a lack of sleep, working and writing days and nights.

Finally, in 1888 great changes came into his life. Russian Academy of Sciences honored him with a Pushkin Prize for his literature work with the name “In Twilight”, this occasion helped him with a decision – to devote himself entirely to writing.

 

But even when he replaced a name on his apartment door from “Doctor. A.P.Chekhov” to simply “A.P.Chekhov”, this door still for many years was open for everyone who needed medical help. He was helping patients at home and was riding to the nearest (or not so nearest as well) districts to help those who could not make the way to him.

 

He always thought that he ought to be a medicine, it was his hardest work, but also another passion and a lot of inspiration for his stories. In a letter to his friend in 1888 he wrote: “Medicine – is my legal wife, but literature – my mistress, when I am bored with one, I am spending a night with another.”

 

 

 

Another mostly known in the world, because of the book “Master and Margarita”, writer-doctor was Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov.

His uncles were very successful doctors, one with his own practice in Warshaw, another in Moscow. Inspired by them, Bulgakov went to a medicine faculty at the University of Kiyev in 1909.

When the First World War started he was mobilized as a military doctor and sent directly to a front. After the war was over, he moved to a village near Smolensk and continued medical practice there, though after the war he was suffering from allergies and chronic pains by himself. He was taking morphine at those times to reduce pain and started to be addicted to it (while going through his addiction he wrote the book “Morphine”, published in 1926, based on his experience), fortunately, he quit the morphine with his wife’s help.

Hard times were not over and Civil War started, he was sent again as a military doctor to Ukraine, and after to North Caucasus, where he got ill with typhus, so he left the war field. After healing at Vladikavkaz he started to write and with his first written dramas, he understood that he wants to tie all his future life with literature.

He was working in a revolutionary committee in the literature and theatrical section, organizing there evenings of literature, public reads, lectures of history and theatre, of course, scenario for which he was writing by himself and was very pleased and happy by seeing them on stage, even though it was a very small and old one. From there he wrote to his brother: “I am four years late with what I should have started to do a long time ago – to write”.

 

 

 

Sources used for this article:

 

• ЭКСМО. (2021, May 13). 5 русских писателей-врачей. eksmo.ru. https://eksmo.ru/articles/5-russkikh-pisateley-vrachey-ID3654472/
• А.П. Чехов – Врачебная деятельность. (n.d.). My Chekhov. Retrieved June 13, 2021, from http://my-chekhov.ru/referats/029d.shtml
• C., A. (1888, September 11). ЧеС. . .РѕРІ — РЎСѓРІРѕСЂРёРЅСѓ Рђ. РЎ., 11 сентября 1888. Chekhov-Lit. http://chehov-lit.ru/chehov/letters/1887-1888/letter-480.htm
• C., M. (1988). Жизнеописание Михаила Булгакова. Москва: Книга.
• Культура.РФ. (n.d.). Михаил Булгаков. Culture. https://www.culture.ru/persons/8263/mikhail-bulgakov