“We will strike out against Bulgakovism!”[i]

And Bulgakov returned fire.

I would have preferred a title more along the lines of “Bulgakov Against Little-mindedness.” “Narrow-mindedness” maybe? But it seems to me, and I believe it seemed to him, that atheism is sufficiently synonymous with either.

Mikhail Bulgakov is my favourite writer. My teacher—Headmaster of the school that I attend. I am assuming the reader will have read something by him. I won’t be providing a little biography of him of my own either. For that kind of a basic introduction, I confidently refer anyone interested to a good little article originally published in Russian Life entitled “Mikhail Bulgakov: A Wolf’s Life.”

Throughout the whole of his literary career Bulgakov thoughtfully engaged what was wrong in the society, and its thinking, in which he himself lived.

Where it went wrong in its thinking was official State irreligiousness, wishfully called “scientific…