Mikhail Bulgakov

Begun in 1920 while Bulgakov was employed in a hospital in the remote Caucasian outpost of Vladikavkaz, and continued when he started working for a government literary department in Moscow, Notes on a Cuff is a series of journalistic sketches which show the young doctor trying to embark on a literary career among the chaos of war, disease, politics and bureaucracy.Stylistically brilliant and brimming with humour and literary allusion, Notes on a Cuff is presented here in a new translation, along with a collection of other short pieces by Bulgakov, many of them – such as ‘The Cockroach’ and ‘A Dissolute Man’ – published for the first time in the English language.

Professor Persikov, an eccentric zoologist, stumbles upon a new light ray that accelerates growth and reproduction rates in living organisms. In the wake of a plague that has decimated the country's poultry stocks, Persikov's discovery is exploited as a means to correct the problem. As foreign agents, the state and the Soviet media all seize upon the red ray, matters get out of hand... Set in 1928 but written four years earlier, during Stalin's rise to power, The Fatal Eggs is both an early piece of science fiction reminiscent of H.G. Wells and a biting, brilliant satire on the consequences of the abuse of power and knowledge.

After being saved from a suicide attempt by the appearance of a literary editor, the journalist and failed novelist Sergei Maxudov has a book suddenly accepted for stage adaptation at a prestigious venue and finds himself propelled into Moscow’s theatrical world. In a cut-throat environment tainted by Soviet politics, censorship and egomania – epitomized by the arrogant and tyrannical director Ivan Vasilyevich – mayhem gradually gives way to absurdity.Unpublished in Bulgakov’s own lifetime, Black Snow is peppered with darkly comic set pieces and draws on its author’s own bitter experience as a playwright with the Moscow Arts Theatre, showcasing his inimitable gift for shrewd observation and razor-sharp satire.

When Soviet censors approved Mikhail Bulgakov's Don Kikhot [ ], a stage adaptation of Don Quixote, they were unaware that they were sanctioning a subtle but powerful criticism of Stalinist rule. The author, whose novel Master i Margarita would eventually bring him world renown, achieved this sleight of hand through a deft interpretation of Cervantes's knight. Bulgakov's Don Quixote fits comfortably into the nineteenth-century Russian tradition of idealistic, troubled intellectuals, but Quixote's quest becomes an allegory of the artist under the strictures of Stalin's regime. Bulgakov did not live to see the play performed: it went into production in 1940, only months after his death.

When Soviet censors approved Mikhail Bulgakov’s stage adaptation of Don Quixote, they were unaware that they were sanctioning a subtle but powerful criticism of Stalinist rule.The volume’s introduction provides background for Bulgakov’s adaptation and compares Bulgakov with Cervantes and the twentieth-century Russian work with the seventeenth century Spanish work.

Diaboliad and Other Stories is the only complete translation of his first collection of short stories, plus six of his best feuilletons from the 1920s. The targets of Bulgakov's brilliant, dark satires here include the Gogolian bureaucracy that mushroomed after the Revolution, the subjugation of science to the state, and the price to be paid when the new world of Communism clashed with the old order. Everywhere the reader will find Bulgakov's customary exuberance, brilliance, and originality, as well as the distinctive voice that was to achieve full effect in The Master and Margarita.

Includes the plays Master and Margarita (Satan’s Ball), Vanity, Gogol and Brothers KaramazovFrom original translations by Faynia Williams. Crane and Williams’ sensational Master and Margarita (Satan’s Ball) marked the beginning of a golden period when their company BrightonTheatre premiered a succession of ground-breaking new plays, which took festivals by storm and toured the world. Out of the spectacular Bulgakov, came the minimalist Gogol, a chilling evocation of Gogol’s whirling world, distilled into a nightmare for today. Then Vanity, a ‘glittering diamond of a play’, reclaimed Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin as a intimate reflection on a love mistimed and shattered by social convention.From these successes, Brighton Theatre moved onto the main Edinburgh programme with Brothers Karamazov: a leap into the dark world of epilepsy, orthodoxy and murder in the family, which won triumphant reviews and international acclaim. Published now for the first time, these four plays flourished out of a unique collaboration of author and director, which saw them progressing from fringe to mainstream, West End and Off-Broadway without changing their style, and becoming an acknowledged inspiration for many of today’s theatre artists.

TRANSLATED BY MICHAEL GLENNYWith the ink still wet on his diploma, the twenty-five-year-old Dr Mikhail Bulgakov was flung into the depths of rural Russia which, in 1916-17, was still largely unaffected by such novelties as the motor car, the telephone or electric light.

The five, irreverant, satirical and imaginative stories contained in Diaboliad caused an uproar upon the book's first publication in 1925. Full of invention, they display Bulgakov's breathtaking stylistic range, moving at dizzying speed from grotesque satire to science fiction, from the plainest realism to the most madcap fantasy.

Bulgakov paints an excellent picture of Stalinâ??s regime in this allegorical masterpiece. WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY WILL SELFThe devil makes a personal appearance in Moscow accompanied by various demons, including a naked girl and a huge black cat.

The first complete and accurate English translation of Bulgakov’s classic novel, accompanied by a substantial historical introduction “Bulgakov’s novel not only leads us into a majestic, more-than-1,000-year-old metropolis, but also gives us an understanding of how, in a single day, the world can change as radically as if decades had passed.”—Marci Shore, The Atlantic “Bulgakov’s novel evokes the suffering of the conflict and the still greater horrors that lay ahead.”—Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal White Guard, Mikhail Bulgakov’s semi-autobiographical first novel, is the story of the Turbin family in Kiev in 1918. Alexei, Elena, and Nikolka Turbin have just lost their mother—their father had died years before—and find themselves plunged into the chaotic civil war that erupted in the Ukraine in the wake of the Russian Revolution. In the context of this family’s personal loss and the social turmoil surrounding them, Bulgakov creates a brilliant picture of the existential crises brought about by the revolution and the loss of social, moral, and political certainties. He confronts the reader with the bewildering cruelty that ripped Russian life apart at the beginning of the last century as well as with the extraordinary ways in which the Turbins preserved their humanity. In this volume Marian Schwartz, a leading translator, offers the first complete and accurate translation of the definitive original text of Bulgakov’s novel. She includes the famous dream sequence, omitted in previous translations, and beautifully solves the stylistic issues raised by Bulgakov’s ornamental prose. Readers with an interest in Russian literature, culture, or history will welcome this superb translation of Bulgakov’s important early work. This edition also contains an informative historical essay by Evgeny Dobrenko.

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY ANDREY KURKOVA rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man.

Banned for 27 years and initially published in a heavily censored edition, The Master and Margarita is probably the most important Russian novel of the 20th century. Written as a satire of Stalin's suffocating bureaucracy, the book has inspired Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, The Rolling Stones' song Sympathy for the Devil and the work of many other international artists, writers and musicians.

I mellemkrigstidens Moskva dukker Satan op i skikkelse af manden Woland. I selskab med et slæng af banditter og en skydegal kat, der går på to ben, spiller han skak, drikker champagne og infiltrerer byens kulturelle verden. En del af denne verden er Mesteren, der skriver på sin store roman om Pontius Pilatus, der lod Jesus korsfæste. Men ingen vil binde an med at udgive værket, og Mesteren ender på en galeanstalt, uden at den hemmelige kæreste, Margarita, forstår, hvad der er sket. Ved Wolands mellemkomst – han straffer forlæggerne for deres tøven – får Margarita imidlertid skaffet Mesteren oprejsning, og selv oplever hun det utrolige at blive inviteret til bal hos Satan selv. Her optræder hun som ballets under-skønne, rituelt indviede dronning og belønnes i sidste ende med at blive genforenet med Mesteren. Mesteren og Margarita er veloplagt, actionmættet, absurd og fantastisk læsning – og så rummer romanen politiske lag og et blik for det dæmoniske i samfundet, som kan få det til at gyse i enhver. Således var romanen i årtier forbudt i Sovjetunionen, fordi den ikke bare var litterært mesterlig, men også beskrev Stalintidens politiske forhold på en prik.

A semi-autobiographical novel by the Russian author best known for The Master and the Margarita describes a writer's failure to sell his novel and then his inability to commit suicide, as well as his discovery of the unexpected consequences of literary success when his play is accepted for a theatrical production. Original. 12,000 first printing.

'Bulgakov is one of the greatest Russian writers, perhaps the greatest' IndependentWritten in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign, The Master and Margarita became an overnight literary phenomenon when it was finally published it, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere. Bulgakov's carnivalesque satire of Soviet life describes how the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow one Spring afternoon. Brimming with magic and incident, it is full of imaginary, historical, terrifying and wonderful characters, from witches, poets and Biblical tyrants to the beautiful, courageous Margarita, who will do anything to save the imprisoned writer she loves. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky with an Introduction by Richard Pevear

A Dog's Heart: An Appalling Story is Mikhail Bulgakov's hilarious satire on Communist hypocrisies. This Penguin Classics edition is translated with notes by Andrew Bromfield, and includes an introduction by James Meek.In this surreal work by the author of The Master and Margarita, wealthy Moscow surgeon Filip Preobrazhensky implants the pituitary gland and testicles of a drunken petty criminal into the body of a stray dog named Sharik. As the dog slowly transforms into a man, and the man into a slovenly, lecherous government official, the doctor's life descends into chaos. A scathing indictment of the New Soviet Man, A Dog's Heart was immediately banned by the Soviet government when it was first published in 1925: alternating lucid realism with pulse-raising drama, the novel captures perfectly the atmosphere of its rapidly changing times.Andrew Bromfield's vibrant translation is accompanied by an introduction by James Meek, which places the work in the context of the Russian class struggles of the era and considers the vision, progressive style and lasting relevance of an author who was isolated and suppressed during his lifetime. This edition also contains notes and a chronology.Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) was born in Kiev, today the capital of Ukraine. After finishing high school, Bulgakov entered the Medical School of Kiev University, graduating in 1916. He wrote about his experiences as a doctor in his early works Notes on Cuffs and Notes of a Young Country Doctor. His later works treated the subject of the artist and the tyrant under the guise of historical characters, but The Master and Margarita is generally considered his masterpiece. Fame, at home and abroad, was not to come until a quarter of a century after his death at Moscow in 1940.If you enjoyed A Dog's Heart, you might like Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, also available in Penguin Classics. 'One of the greatest of modern Russian writers, perhaps the greatest' Nigel Jones, Independent

Only in Russian "The Master and Margarita." A complete collection of drafts of the novel. The main text. In 2 volumes. For the first time the whole set of drafts of M. A. Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita", kept in the Research Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library, is published. The text of the drafts is transmitted by the method of dynamic transcription and is accompanied by a detailed textual commentary. The first volume of this edition contains the manuscript editions of the novel (1928-1938). The second volume includes the sixth edition of the novel (1938-1940) and the main text. The final, maximally reflecting the author's will, text of the novel, established by the researcher of M. A. Bulgakov's work, candidate of philological sciences E. Y. Kolysheva on the basis of comparison of drafts and conducted textual and historical-biographical research, is published. The autographs of the writer were used for the design of the book.

Roman "Belaja gvardija" - eto istorija o "smutnoj mgle", pavshej na rodnuju zemlju, eto istorija Grazhdanskoj vojny, strashnogo bratoubijstvennogo vremeni, istorija krakha traditsij i ustoev, istorija krovoprolitija, rasskazannaja glazami ochevidtsa i uchastnika sobytij. Rabotu nad romanom "Belaja gvardija" pisatel nachal esche v 1922 godu, a v marte 1923 goda v zhurnale "Rossija" uzhe pojavilos soobschenie o tom, chto M. Bulgakov zakanchivaet roman. "Belaja gvardija" - pervaja bolshaja vesch Bulgakova, i nastroenie, s kotorym Bulgakov vkhodil v russkuju literaturu, otrazilos na vsem ego dalnejshem tvorchestve. V etoj pervoj bulgakovskoj "bolshoj proze" uzhe zvuchat motivy ego poslednego, "zakatnogo romana""Master i Margarita".