This article examines legal aspects of M.A. Bulgakov's biography and works. It focuses on the writer's works, written both during the liberal period of the NEP and in the 1930s, marked by political repression. Special attention is given to little-known short stories and feuilletons from the early 1920s. It is concluded that the writer demonstrated a strong commitment to the natural law concept of law and its derivative doctrines, and rejected the possibility of equating law (as a concept of justice) with the law (as a situational manifestation of power).