Bulgakov and Tanks: Why Manuscripts Do Burn After All
The intersection of literature and warfare has taken on a disturbing new dimension in the context of Russia’s ongoing military aggression against Ukraine. Russian forces have systematically appropriated cultural symbols, literary references, and historical narratives to justify their invasion, transforming what was once shared cultural heritage into weapons of propaganda. Among the most cynically deployed symbols is the legacy of Mikhail Bulgakov, the celebrated author of “The Master and Margarita” and “The White Guard,” whose complex relationship with Kyiv and Ukrainian identity has been weaponized to serve military objectives that would have horrified the writer himself.
Bulgakov, born in Kyiv in 1891, spent his formative years in the city that now finds itself under constant threat from Russian missiles. His novel “The White Guard” immortalized the turbulent period of the Russian Civil War as experienced in Kyiv, depicting the city with intimate knowledge and deep affection. However, the Russian military’s invocation of Bulgakov’s name and imagery represents a grotesque distortion of his legacy. Soldiers have painted literary quotes on tanks and missiles, attempting to cloak their destruction in a veneer of cultural legitimacy. This appropriation ignores the fundamental irony that Bulgakov himself was a victim of Soviet censorship and political persecution, his works banned and his creative freedom crushed by the very type of authoritarian system now waging war in his name.
The phenomenon of weaponizing culture extends far beyond individual authors. Russian state propaganda has constructed an elaborate narrative that positions the invasion as a defense of “Russian culture” and “Russian-speaking populations,” despite the fact that Ukraine has its own rich literary tradition and that many Ukrainian citizens who speak Russian have become the very targets of Russian bombardment. Cities like Kharkiv, Odesa, and Kyiv itself—places with deep connections to Russian-language literature—have suffered devastating attacks. Libraries have been destroyed, theaters bombed, and cultural institutions reduced to rubble. The manuscript repositories that Bulgakov famously declared immortal have, in fact, burned in the fires of Russian artillery strikes.
Historical analysis reveals a long pattern of Russian imperial attempts to suppress Ukrainian cultural identity while simultaneously claiming Ukrainian cultural achievements as Russian. This practice dates back to the Ems Decree of 1876, which banned the Ukrainian language in print, and continued through Soviet policies of Russification that sought to eliminate distinct Ukrainian national consciousness. The current conflict represents the latest and most violent iteration of this cultural imperialism. Scholars of Eastern European history note that the deliberate targeting of cultural sites—museums, archives, monuments—follows a calculated strategy of erasing Ukrainian identity and replacing it with a Russian imperial narrative.
International cultural organizations have documented hundreds of attacks on Ukrainian cultural heritage sites since February 2022. UNESCO has verified damage to museums, historical buildings, libraries, and monuments across the country. Each destroyed archive represents not just physical loss but an assault on collective memory and national identity. The irony of invoking literary giants while systematically destroying literature itself has not been lost on observers. Ukrainian writers, artists, and intellectuals have responded by documenting these losses and asserting their cultural sovereignty with renewed vigor, creating new works that bear witness to the destruction while affirming Ukrainian identity.
The manipulation of Bulgakov’s legacy particularly stings for Ukrainians who had long claimed him as part of their own cultural landscape. Born and raised in Kyiv, writing about Kyiv, Bulgakov belongs as much to Ukrainian cultural geography as to Russian literature. The attempt to use his name to justify the destruction of his birthplace represents a form of cultural necromancy—raising the dead to speak words they never would have uttered. Literary scholars point out that Bulgakov’s works consistently questioned authority, mocked propaganda, and depicted the human cost of ideological warfare. His satirical masterpiece “The Master and Margarita” specifically targeted the corruption and mendacity of authoritarian systems.
As the conflict continues, the weaponization of culture serves as a reminder that modern warfare operates on multiple fronts simultaneously. The battle for narrative control, for historical interpretation, for cultural legitimacy runs parallel to the physical conflict. Yet this cultural warfare ultimately undermines its own objectives. Each appropriated symbol, each literary reference painted on instruments of death, each claim to cultural superiority made while destroying cultural heritage, exposes the hollowness of the propaganda it serves. Bulgakov wrote that manuscripts don’t burn, expressing faith in the persistence of truth and art against political persecution. The tragic reality of Russia’s war against Ukraine proves that manuscripts do indeed burn—but so too does the moral authority of those who set the fires while claiming to defend civilization.
