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Faddei Venediktovich Bulgarin (;Written Ѳаддей Венедиктовичъ Булгаринъ in pre-revolution Russian orthography. – ), born Jan Tadeusz Krzysztof Bułharyn, was a Russian writer, journalist and publisher of Polish ancestry. In addition to his newspaper work, he rejuvenated the Russian novel, and published the first theatrical almanac in Russian. During his life, his novels were translated and published in English language, French language, German language, Swedish language, Polish language, and Czech language. He served as a soldier under Napoleon, and in later life as an agent of the Czar's secret police.The secret police were known as the Third Department of the Personal Office of His Imperial Majesty, and were later replaced by the Okhrana. Figlyarin was a derogatory play on words from Bulgarin's first name and figlyar, meaning jester or clown. This play on words was first made by the poet Vyazemsky, and immortalized in an epigram by Yevgeny Baratynsky, published in 1827.
Bulgarin's childhood passed on the estates of Makovishchi near Hlusk, in the Orsha district, in the Minsk district, Minsk and Nesvizh. From there, Bulgarin went with his mother as a child to Saint Petersburg, where he joined the cadet corps in 1798–1806. While studying, he began to write fairy tales and satires. He knew Russian poorly and at first he studied with difficulty and was ridiculed by the cadets, but gradually took root in the corps, under the influence of the corps literary traditions he began to compose fables and satires, and subsequently wrote a very flattering review of his history teacher G. V. Gerakov.
Having lost his service, Bulgarin finds himself without money, toils for some time, and then goes to the Duchy of Warsaw. There he enters its army that was created by Napoleon – after the Peace of Tilsit (1807), France was an ally of the Russian Empire. As part of the Legion of the Vistula, he fought in Spain during the Peninsular War. In 1812, he fought in the campaign of 1812 against Russia in the Duchy's 8th Uhlan Regiment, part of Marshal Oudinot's II Corps. For his actions during the campaign of 1812, he was awarded the 5th Class Legion of Honour and promoted to the rank of captain.
According to one account, he was captured by Russian troops in 1812 during the Battle of Berezina. Another source writes that Bulgarin was in the battles of Bautzen and Kulm in 1813 and that he surrendered to the Prussian troops in 1814 and was then extradited to Russia.
He significantly developed his literary and publishing activities in Saint Petersburg, where he went in 1819 and made friends with the leading local writers. He worked in the personal office of the Emperor of Russia. It is known that he held a pro-court position in his literary activity; he was a censor and informer of the imperial police. He helped Adam Mickiewicz escape from Russia. He was one of the top Russian conservatives.
In 1820, Bulgarin travelled from Warsaw to St. Petersburg, where he published a critical review of Polish literature and started editing The Northern Archive. He also made friends with the playwright Alexander Griboyedov and the philologist Nikolay Gretsch. The latter helped him to edit the newspaper Northern Bee (1825–1839), the literary journal Fatherland's Son (1825–1859), and other reactionary periodicals.
Bulgarin's unscrupulous manners made him the most odious journalist in the Russian Empire. The leading Russian poets Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov devoted critical to Bulgarin. Alexander Pushkin, in particular, ridiculed him in a number of , written in Moscow magazine Teleskop as well. Pushkin was changing his name to Figlyarin (from a Russian word for "clown") in one of the epigrams called Vidok Figlyarin. In turn, Bulgarin intensively criticized Pushkin in his works. Bulgarin retorted with epigrams, in which Pushkin's name was rendered as Chushkin (from the Russian word for "nonsense").
Inspired by Sir Walter Scott, Bulgarin wrote the Ivan Vejeeghen series of , which used to be popular in Russia and abroad. He followed these with two sententious novels Dmitry the Pretender (1830),The English translation of Dmitry the Pretender appeared in 1831 under the title Demetrius.Pushkin accused Bulgarin of plagiarizing his then-unpublished play Boris Godunov for the novel Dmitry the Pretender; Bulgarin is assumed to have examined the manuscript of the play while it was being held by the tsarist secret police. See . about the False Dmitry I, and Mazepa (1834) about Ivan Mazepa. In 1837 he published under his own name a lengthy description of Imperial Russia, although much of the work was actually by Nikolai Alexeyevich Ivanov, then a Ph.D. student at Dorpat University.
Some of Bulgarin's stories are science fiction: Plausible Fantasies is a far future story about the 29th century; Improbable Fables is a fantastic voyage into hollow Earth; The Adventures of Mitrofanushka on the Moon is a satire.
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