Mirko Bulat was born in 1931 in Osijek. He attended elementary and secondary school in Osijek, and took a degree in archaeology at the Faculty of Philosophy in the Zagreb University in 1955. From 1956 he carried out the jobs of curator and senior curator of the Archaeology Department of the Museum of Slavonia, Osijek. He investigated the remains of ancient Mursa, in the area of today’s Osijek. As leader and associate he worked on the excavations of a settlement of the Bronze and Iron Age, and of the Roman camp in Gradec by Batinska Skela (1970, 1977), on the remains of Roman Dalj (1966, 1974, 1977), of the ancient sewage system in Kopačevo (1977) and a necropolis of later antiquity in Sladojevci (1966), and a Dalj settlement of the later Bronze Age (1979).
He was particularly devoted to the study of the prehistory period, and the Roman period in Osijek, Slavonia and Baranja, and to the study of the remains of the limes in Slavonia and Baranja. He published many papers and articles in the Glasnik slavonskih muzeja, Osječki zbornik, Glas Slavonije, Vijesti muzealaca i konzervatora and other publications.
He took part in many scholarly conferences and symposia and gave well-received addresses about the investigations of ancient settlements. He won the City of Osijek Prize and the "Pavao Ritter Vitezović" Prize of the Croatian Museums Association for lifetime achievement in 2005. In order to commemorate his many years of work, in October 2007 the Museum of Slavonia, Osijek, published the Collected Papers of Mirko Bulat, with more than two hundred bibliographic entries.

NB. Data taken from the questionnaire, material taken from the Personnel Archives of the MDC, and from an interview recorded on October 21 2004.