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Notes on the Cuff and Other Stories
The stories collected here represent a sampling of the prose that first established Bulgakov as a major figure in the literary renaissance of Moscow in the 1920s, long before he became known as an influential playwright and novelist.
The centerpiece of this collection is the long story "Notes on the Cuff," a comically autobiographical account of how the tenacious young writer managed to begin his literary career despite famine, typhus, civil war, the wrong political affiliation, and the Byzantine Moscow bureaucracy. This stylistically brilliant work was only partially published during Bulgakov's lifetime due to censorship, but was immediately recognized by the literati as an important work.
The other stories collected here range from a sequence about the Civil War to Bulgakov's early reportage on the rebuilding of Moscow in the early 1920s, stories which now have a strikingly contemporary ring. Bulgakov describes the swindlers who arrived along with NEP, a program for the limited return to a market economy, as well as the vast reconstruction as the city is brought back from the destruction of civil war.
Bulgakov, who burst on the world literary scene in the 1960s with the publication of his long-suppressed The Master and Margarita, has continued to enjoy tremendous success both in and out of Russia where productions of his plays and adaptations of his prose works have found new audiences.
The centerpiece of this collection is the long story "Notes on the Cuff," a comically autobiographical account of how the tenacious young writer managed to begin his literary career despite famine, typhus, civil war, the wrong political affiliation, and the Byzantine Moscow bureaucracy. This stylistically brilliant work was only partially published during Bulgakov's lifetime due to censorship, but was immediately recognized by the literati as an important work.
The other stories collected here range from a sequence about the Civil War to Bulgakov's early reportage on the rebuilding of Moscow in the early 1920s, stories which now have a strikingly contemporary ring. Bulgakov describes the swindlers who arrived along with NEP, a program for the limited return to a market economy, as well as the vast reconstruction as the city is brought back from the destruction of civil war.
Bulgakov, who burst on the world literary scene in the 1960s with the publication of his long-suppressed The Master and Margarita, has continued to enjoy tremendous success both in and out of Russia where productions of his plays and adaptations of his prose works have found new audiences.
223 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1940
15 people are currently reading
345 people want to read
About the author
Mikhail Bulgakov
708 books7,625 followersMikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Булгаков) was a Russian writer, medical doctor, and playwright. His novel
The Master and Margarita
, published posthumously, has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.
He also wrote the novel The White Guard and the plays Ivan Vasilievich, Flight (also called The Run ), and The Days of the Turbins . He wrote mostly about the horrors of the Russian Civil War and about the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil War.
Some of his works ( Flight , all his works between the years 1922 and 1926, and others) were banned by the Soviet government, and personally by Joseph Stalin, after it was decided by them that they "glorified emigration and White generals". On the other hand, Stalin loved The Days of the Turbins (also called The Turbin Brothers ) very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times.
He also wrote the novel The White Guard and the plays Ivan Vasilievich, Flight (also called The Run ), and The Days of the Turbins . He wrote mostly about the horrors of the Russian Civil War and about the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil War.
Some of his works ( Flight , all his works between the years 1922 and 1926, and others) were banned by the Soviet government, and personally by Joseph Stalin, after it was decided by them that they "glorified emigration and White generals". On the other hand, Stalin loved The Days of the Turbins (also called The Turbin Brothers ) very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times.
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April 27, 2019
Notes on a cuff
XII
Run, run!
"A hundred thousand...I've got a hundred thousand roubles!" I've earned it.
It was a local assistant barrister who inspired me. He came up to me when I was sitting silently somewhere with my head in my hands and said:
"I haven't got any money either. There's just one way out: we must write a play. About the life of the local people. A revolutionary play. We'll sell it..."
I looked at him vacantly and replied:
"I can't write anything about the life of the local people, either revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. I don't know anything about their way of life. And, in general, I can't write anything. I'm tired, and I have no talent for literature."
"You're talking nonsense," he answered. "It's because you're starving. Be a man. Their way of life - that's easy! I know all about it, through and through. We'll write it together. We'll go half and half."
We started to write that very same evening. The barrister had a warm circular stove. His wife would hang out the washing on a line in the room and then serve us beetroot salad with butter and tea with saccharin. The barrister gave me typical local names, explained the local customs, and I wrote the plot. He wrote as well, and his wife would draw her chair up to us and give us advice. I very soon became convinced that they were both far better at literature than I was. But I didn't feel envious, because I had firmly convinced myself that this would be the last play I would write...
So we wrote.
He would lie blissfully by the stove and say:
"I love writing!"
And I scratched away with my pen...
A week later the three-act play was ready. When I read it to myself at night in my own unheated room, I am not ashamed to confess that I wept! On the scale of awfulness, it was something really special, something really striking! There wasn't a single line of this collective enterprise that wasn't insolently mind-numbing. I couldn't believe my eyes! What an idiot: if I wrote like that what possible hope could there be for me? Shame looked out at me from the damp green walls and the appalling black windows. I began to tear up the manuscript. But I stopped myself. Because suddenly, in a flash of uncharacteristically miraculous lucidity, I realized that people who say you must never destroy what has been written are right! You can tear it up, you can burn it... You can hide it from other people. But from yourself - never! It's been done! I can't get rid of it. I had written that astonishing piece. It has been done!...
In the local literary sub-department, the play created a sensation. It was immediately bought for two hundred thousand. And two weeks later it was put on.
Daggers, bandoliers and eyes gleamed in the fog formed by the breathing of a thousand people. After the scene in the third act when the heroic horsemen had burst in and seized the police officer and the policemen, the Chechens, Kabardians and Ingush yelled: "Got him! The bastard! Serves him right!". And they followed the young ladies of the sub-department by shouting for the author. In the wings they shook our hands. "Wonderful play!" And they invited us to their mountain village.
...Run! Run! On a hundred thousand it's possible to get away from here. Westwards, to the sea. Then by sea to France and, by dry land, to Paris!
...With the rain lashing my face and huddled up in my coat, I ran home through the little lanes for the final time...
...All you prose writers and playwrights in Paris and Berlin, just try! Try, just for fun, to write something really bad! If you are as talented as Kuprin, Bunin or Gorky you won't succeed. I have broken the record! For collective authorship. There were three of us writing it: I, the barrister and hunger. At the beginning of '21...
XII
Run, run!
"A hundred thousand...I've got a hundred thousand roubles!" I've earned it.
It was a local assistant barrister who inspired me. He came up to me when I was sitting silently somewhere with my head in my hands and said:
"I haven't got any money either. There's just one way out: we must write a play. About the life of the local people. A revolutionary play. We'll sell it..."
I looked at him vacantly and replied:
"I can't write anything about the life of the local people, either revolutionary or counter-revolutionary. I don't know anything about their way of life. And, in general, I can't write anything. I'm tired, and I have no talent for literature."
"You're talking nonsense," he answered. "It's because you're starving. Be a man. Their way of life - that's easy! I know all about it, through and through. We'll write it together. We'll go half and half."
We started to write that very same evening. The barrister had a warm circular stove. His wife would hang out the washing on a line in the room and then serve us beetroot salad with butter and tea with saccharin. The barrister gave me typical local names, explained the local customs, and I wrote the plot. He wrote as well, and his wife would draw her chair up to us and give us advice. I very soon became convinced that they were both far better at literature than I was. But I didn't feel envious, because I had firmly convinced myself that this would be the last play I would write...
So we wrote.
He would lie blissfully by the stove and say:
"I love writing!"
And I scratched away with my pen...
A week later the three-act play was ready. When I read it to myself at night in my own unheated room, I am not ashamed to confess that I wept! On the scale of awfulness, it was something really special, something really striking! There wasn't a single line of this collective enterprise that wasn't insolently mind-numbing. I couldn't believe my eyes! What an idiot: if I wrote like that what possible hope could there be for me? Shame looked out at me from the damp green walls and the appalling black windows. I began to tear up the manuscript. But I stopped myself. Because suddenly, in a flash of uncharacteristically miraculous lucidity, I realized that people who say you must never destroy what has been written are right! You can tear it up, you can burn it... You can hide it from other people. But from yourself - never! It's been done! I can't get rid of it. I had written that astonishing piece. It has been done!...
In the local literary sub-department, the play created a sensation. It was immediately bought for two hundred thousand. And two weeks later it was put on.
Daggers, bandoliers and eyes gleamed in the fog formed by the breathing of a thousand people. After the scene in the third act when the heroic horsemen had burst in and seized the police officer and the policemen, the Chechens, Kabardians and Ingush yelled: "Got him! The bastard! Serves him right!". And they followed the young ladies of the sub-department by shouting for the author. In the wings they shook our hands. "Wonderful play!" And they invited us to their mountain village.
...Run! Run! On a hundred thousand it's possible to get away from here. Westwards, to the sea. Then by sea to France and, by dry land, to Paris!
...With the rain lashing my face and huddled up in my coat, I ran home through the little lanes for the final time...
...All you prose writers and playwrights in Paris and Berlin, just try! Try, just for fun, to write something really bad! If you are as talented as Kuprin, Bunin or Gorky you won't succeed. I have broken the record! For collective authorship. There were three of us writing it: I, the barrister and hunger. At the beginning of '21...
March 3, 2016
"Însemnări pe manşete" este una dintre operele care anunţă mare creaţie ulterioară a lui Bulgakov, concentrată într-o singură opera, cosmogonică (şi la propriu şi la figurat!) şi eternă.
Şi aceasta -ca şi celelalte scrieri scurte, de altfel- a indus cititorii din epoca în derută, deoarece subiectul este relativ ambiguu şi capătă multe interpretări (printre care şi neliniştea omului în aspiraţia spre absolut pe un fundal al "fugii" industriale).
Şi aceasta -ca şi celelalte scrieri scurte, de altfel- a indus cititorii din epoca în derută, deoarece subiectul este relativ ambiguu şi capătă multe interpretări (printre care şi neliniştea omului în aspiraţia spre absolut pe un fundal al "fugii" industriale).
February 19, 2018
This collection includes several longer stories, like the titular Notes on a Cuff, The Crimson Island, and The Fire of the Khans (my favorite among the longer pieces), as well as a bunch of shorter stories, among which The Murderer and The Cockroach really stood out.
January 25, 2017
Some events during the Soviet era were so bizarre it seems that they could only be works of satire. This collection of Mikhail Bulgakov’s earliest short stories, written between 1920 and 1921, highlights the horror, pathos and comic absurdity of the period.
The longest story in the collection, “Notes on a Cuff” is an (only slightly) satirical account of Bulgakov's early writing career, including the two months he spent as secretary of LITO, the Literary Department of the Central Political Enlightenment Committee, an agency of the Commissariat of Education. I have no idea whether LITO sounds as silly in Russian as it does in translation, but judging by the opening passage, in which the narrator, suffering from typhus-induced delirium, fades in and out of consciousness as he riffs on a series of puns on the name, I guess it does!
In one bizarre incident, LITO’s “literary evenings” in the Caucasus were banned due to newspaper criticism that the portrait of Pushkin displayed on the stage made the founder of modern Russian literature look like a “serf-owning landlord”!
The story also includes a wonderful account of Mikhail Bulgakov’s play-writing collaboration with a lawyer:
“There were three of us writing it: I, the barrister and hunger.”
Anyone who has ever dealt with bureaucracy will surely identify with the Kafkaesque account of the fruitless day Bulgakov spent looking for the LITO office after it was re-located without his knowledge.
And anyone who has ever sat through an interminable presentation will also appreciate “Makar Devushkin’s Story”, an hilarious account of a Party meeting in which each official spoke for three hours or so, but at which the main drawcard was the Party secretary’s impressive new trousers:
“And, indeed, Fitilyov appeared in a pair of trousers with such creases and so magnificently tailored that they resembled those on the metal statue of Puskin in Moscow.”
But when a particularly boring speaker spoke about the work of the management committee:
“No trousers were of any help here, and even Fitilyov himself… fell asleep while pretending to be listening. The young women who had been looking admiringly at the handsome figure of Fitilyov all left the room — they couldn’t stay any longer, even though he was a bachelor.”
The two stories “The Strange Adventures of a Doctor” and “The Murderer” are particularly interesting because they draw from Mikhail Bulgakov’s experience as a doctor in the Ukrainian People’s Army during the Russian Civil War and presage events in his novel The White Guard.
Although the stories are of varying quality, I highly recommend this collection for fans of Mikhail Bulgakov and Soviet absurdism.
September 28, 2019
Nuk e kam kuptuar kurrë pse këto librat e Bulgakovit më mbarojnë shpejt...
September 13, 2014
I never though that I'd like some book of Bulgakov more than I liked (LOVED) Master & Margarita. However when I finally started to read his short stories I understood how wrong I could be. These stories connect you with Bulgakov as you know him in reality, as he is someone you know very well. It is like you are sitting in the park (or maybe kitchen) with him and he is telling you about everything - his friends, neighbors, colleagues, places he've been to, stories he heard.
We must admit that he was witness of very bad times and his intelligent mind did not suit to bolsheviks' world at all. In spite of this his absolutely fine intellect and subtle sense of humor makes you smile all the time while you read these narrations. He doesn't play a hero, he admits that he was poor, hungry, scared and lost man.
He is very sincere and honest.
We must admit that he was witness of very bad times and his intelligent mind did not suit to bolsheviks' world at all. In spite of this his absolutely fine intellect and subtle sense of humor makes you smile all the time while you read these narrations. He doesn't play a hero, he admits that he was poor, hungry, scared and lost man.
He is very sincere and honest.
June 18, 2013
I could not have loved this book more. I had to brush up on my history of the Russian Civil war so that I could actually understand some of the specific events he narrates, especially those happening in his beloved Kiev. But the chaotic style of narration forced the reader to feel the utter chaos these citizens experienced from seemly endless violence and from constantly changing hands, as well as the hunger and desperation that defined the period. This would have been a very difficult and perhaps even pointless read without the footnotes, though, which explained/contextualized a lot of the fine-tuned cultural subtleties that so define Bulgakov's style (which would have otherwise been completely lost on me). I had to immediately go out and buy his novel The White Guard in hopes to find more of the same!
June 28, 2016
[I've read another edition - the new translation by Alma Classics]
Read this book!
Start with 'The Murderer', if you want to try out thinking well of a murderer. I immediately started reading again, and then again, after finishing this story.
Start here too if you're hesitant.
As well you might be. The stories are about chaos so, of course, are sometimes chaotic.
Ease yourself into them.
I'd suggest giving yourself time to savour each story in between reading.
Don't even think about enjoying them as you go along. After all, it isn't enjoyable living in chaos.
Read this book!
Start with 'The Murderer', if you want to try out thinking well of a murderer. I immediately started reading again, and then again, after finishing this story.
Start here too if you're hesitant.
As well you might be. The stories are about chaos so, of course, are sometimes chaotic.
Ease yourself into them.
I'd suggest giving yourself time to savour each story in between reading.
Don't even think about enjoying them as you go along. After all, it isn't enjoyable living in chaos.
August 28, 2020
Great writing style. Will definitely read Master & Margherita at one point.
August 15, 2016
Bulgakov could probably write in any form he set his mind to, and in Notes on a Cuff and Other Stories there are many wonderful stories that display his great talent. The title story, for example, is written from the perspective of a recovering typhus patient, whose delirium seems to reach beyond his hospital room. Also enjoyable were The Fire of the Khans, Crimson Island, The Murderer, and Cockroach; an especially funny story, in collection not filled with comedy, is A Scurvy Fellow. There is a reason this great Russian writer was largely unknown until after his death, it is the subtle criticisms of both the Bolshevik and Stalinist regimes. Stalin was a great admirer of Bulgakov and occasionally provided much needed financial assistance, but most of Bulgakov's novels, plays and stories were suppressed during is lifetime. These stories can be read as both experiments in avant garde literature and as literary criticism of the larger political landscape that Bulgakov and other writers were navigating.
June 9, 2013
Some short stories and "feuilletons" by the Russian author, who I understand is quite influential (I had not read anything by him before picking this one up on the discount pile at a bookstore). I enjoyed the feuilletons the most; short descriptions of Moscow in the early 1920's, during Lenin's New Economic Policy. The short stories I liked hardly at all. I felt the transitions in them were clumsy and the voice or POV was frequently muddled. It seemed to me that maybe the translation was at fault (I think Russian is a difficult language to translate into English). The best of the short stories was the first, a type of autobiographical account of the writer's illness during the Russian Civil War, being stuck in the mountains of Georgia and his delirium. I mentioned my take on this book to a former teacher and he recommended I not give up on this author and try "The Master and Margarita." Maybe.
July 9, 2012
(Note, I read the title novella and the first set of stories, but skipped most of the "Feuilletons").
I was excited to find a Bulgakov book that I hadn't yet read appear in translation. But the excitement did not extend to the actual reading, which explained why these are not very common. The title novella Notes on the Cuff is about a doctor/writer (much like Bulgakov), focusing on a series of incidents during the civil war, and not nearly as good as A Dead Man's Memoir (aka Black Snow), which itself was not so great. A number of other stories are in a similar vein. The second part of the book is "Feuilletons" which describe Moscow, other cities, in somewhat satirical terms. I only dipped into these and found them less interesting than the first half.
I would have been better of reading Master & Margarita a third time.
I was excited to find a Bulgakov book that I hadn't yet read appear in translation. But the excitement did not extend to the actual reading, which explained why these are not very common. The title novella Notes on the Cuff is about a doctor/writer (much like Bulgakov), focusing on a series of incidents during the civil war, and not nearly as good as A Dead Man's Memoir (aka Black Snow), which itself was not so great. A number of other stories are in a similar vein. The second part of the book is "Feuilletons" which describe Moscow, other cities, in somewhat satirical terms. I only dipped into these and found them less interesting than the first half.
I would have been better of reading Master & Margarita a third time.
July 6, 2020
Definitely one of my favourite authors, so I always look forward to reading anything by Bulgakov.
Quite a number of short stories here and the ones I enjoyed most were Notes On A Cuff, The Unusual Adventures Of A Doctor, Moonshine Lake, A Scurvy Character, The Murderer and The Cockroach.
All of the stories gathered here, show Bulgakov trying a few different styles and subjects, as they are all written very early on in his writing career. I felt the ones I have listed, showed how early on, his style showed promise of what he would later write.
They show his fantastical and surreal side, akin to Gogol, a sense of anxiety and fear similar to Kafka and a psychological bent close to Dostoyevsky. But Bulgakov manages to put them across in a style of his own, a way of writing of which I will never tire.
Quite a number of short stories here and the ones I enjoyed most were Notes On A Cuff, The Unusual Adventures Of A Doctor, Moonshine Lake, A Scurvy Character, The Murderer and The Cockroach.
All of the stories gathered here, show Bulgakov trying a few different styles and subjects, as they are all written very early on in his writing career. I felt the ones I have listed, showed how early on, his style showed promise of what he would later write.
They show his fantastical and surreal side, akin to Gogol, a sense of anxiety and fear similar to Kafka and a psychological bent close to Dostoyevsky. But Bulgakov manages to put them across in a style of his own, a way of writing of which I will never tire.
February 8, 2020
The story "Bohemia" by the famous Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov is written in the style of a diary. There is no traditional structure in the story such as introduction, climax, conclusion. The story is like a sketch of the everyday life of a person.
The events refer to the year 1921 after the Russian revolution. The narrator described the mess in society at that time. He wrote a revolutionary play about local life in Vladikavkaz. The author presents it with humor and irony. Even without a logical ending, the story might be interesting for readers as a chronicle of life as seen by an eyewitness of that time.
This is a link to the text of the story:
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
The events refer to the year 1921 after the Russian revolution. The narrator described the mess in society at that time. He wrote a revolutionary play about local life in Vladikavkaz. The author presents it with humor and irony. Even without a logical ending, the story might be interesting for readers as a chronicle of life as seen by an eyewitness of that time.
This is a link to the text of the story:
https://www.shortstoryproject.com/sto...
November 29, 2013
Feuilletons I'd imagine of chiefly historical interest, but two stories of real quality--showed Bulgakov's gift for whatever it is. Magical realism? Hyperrealism? Black comedy? Worth reading for those two longer works.
November 19, 2010
Small beer by a master brewer. The title story has a manic excellence but the military stories and journalistic journeys could have been lost to the ages without anyone much minding, I imagine.
May 25, 2015
Author's journal between 1922-1923 of how he became a writer. Interesting as a document.
January 20, 2016
Not that good biographical writing, based on my taste. To many references to himself. A little bit ego-centric, I think. Anyway, I prefer Bulgakov's fictional works.
November 29, 2017
Some fascinating and autobiographical tales from my favorite author, which I am very grateful to have been finally translated.
December 12, 2018
funny, i guess!
July 21, 2019
Good enough, but not nearly as good or entertaining as A Young Doctor’s Notebook, Fatal Eggs, Heart of a Dog / others.
October 25, 2021
These stories were all written before Bulgakov started work on his masterpiece “The Master and the Margarita”, but unlike the novel, were published at the time. It’s an interesting mix; Bulgakov is despondent for having seen the horrors of revolutionary war, cynical of dogma and the bureaucracy of communism, and yet strangely optimistic and hopeful in his sketches of Moscow.
The works are a little uneven; the title story “Notes on the Cuff” (1920-1921) noticeably suffers in cohesiveness for having been censored. However, “The Red Crown” (1922) is very good, about the guilt a man feels for not saving his 19-year-old brother for having gone off and died in the Army. This is guilt which borders on insanity, and the tale is artistically told. “The Night of the Third” (1922) is also well done, about a particular act of violence in the night as the different factions successively gained control over a small town.
“Red Stone Moscow” (1922), “Moscow, City of Churches” (1923), and “Moscow Scenes” (1923) all paint nice pictures of Bolshevik Moscow, and it seems that despite it all, Bulgakov remained an optimist. “The City of Kiev” (1923) depicts the beautiful city on the Dneiper which had changed hands fourteen times during the revolution, Bulgakov attesting to having personally witnessed ten of those.
Not a perfect set of short stories by any means and not fantastical like his novels, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Quotes:
On bureaucracy in communist Russia, from “Notes on the Cuff”, I smiled over it:
“I am opposed to the death sentence. But if Madame Kritskaya is taken to be shot, I will go along to watch. The same for the young lady in the sealskin hat. And Lidochka, the clerk’s assistant.”
“In 1921 things were not quite the same as in 1924. To be more precise, it was impossible to just pack up and go wherever you wanted! Apparently, those who were charge of civilian travel reasoned something like this:
‘If everyone started traveling, then where would we be?’”
On communism, from “The Night of the Third”:
“But it’s like this: I am against the death penalty. Yes. Against. Karl Marx, I admit, I haven’t read, and I don’t even quite understand what connection he has with all this mess, but these two we’ve got to kill, like rabid dogs. They’re scum. Vile pogrom organizers and thieves.”
On genius, from “The Capital in a Notebook”:
“’Meyerhold is a genius,’ howled the Futurist. I don’t doubt it. Very possibly. Let him be a genius. I don’t care. But it should not be forgotten that geniuses are loners, and I am of the masses. I am of the audience. The theater is for me. I want to go to a theater I can understand.”
On guilt, from “The Red Crown”:
“I have no hope. Futilely, in burning anguish, I wait in the twilight for the dream to come – that old familiar room and the peaceful light from those radiant eyes. But all of that is gone forever.
The burden does not ease. And at night I wait submissively for the familiar horseman with the sightless eyes to come and say hoarsely: ‘I can’t leave the troop.’
Yes, I am hopeless. He will drive me to my grave.”
On Moscow, from “Moscow, City of Churches”:
“And, sitting at home on the fifth floor, in a room overflowing with secondhand books, I dream of how in the summer I will climb the Sparrow Hills to the spot where Napoleon stood, and I will see how the city’s churches gleam on seven hills, how Moscow breathes and glistens. Moscow is the mother.”
On religion, from “The City of Kiev”:
“The situation is this. The Old church despises the Living and the Autocephalous, the Living Church despises the Old and the Autocephalous, and the Autocephalous church despises the Old and the Living.
How the good work of all three churches, the hearts of whose priests are fed with evil, will end, I can say with the greatest confidence: with believers defecting en masse from all three churches and plunging into the abyss of starkest atheism. And the only ones to blame will be the priests themselves, who will have thoroughly discredited not only themselves but also the very idea of faith.”
On sadness, from “Notes on the Cuff”, haven’t we all been there…
“Despair. Above my head a foot-cloth and a black mouse is gnawing at my heart…”
Lastly this one, from “The Night of the Third”, I liked the ‘feel’ of it as a close to the violence which had come earlier, making it all seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things:
“In an hour the town was sleeping. Doctor Bakaleinikov was sleeping. The streets, boarded doorways, and closed gates were silent. There wasn’t a single person on the streets. And the distance was silent as well. Not a sound came from the river, from Slobodka with its anxious yellow fires, or from the bridge with its pale chain of streetlights. And the black ribbon which had crossed the city disappeared in the darkness on the other side. The sky hung like a velvet bedcurtain with diamond fragments, Venus, miraculously stuck back together, glittered over Slobodka, almost reddish, and there lay the white shoulder belt – the slivery Milky Way.”
The works are a little uneven; the title story “Notes on the Cuff” (1920-1921) noticeably suffers in cohesiveness for having been censored. However, “The Red Crown” (1922) is very good, about the guilt a man feels for not saving his 19-year-old brother for having gone off and died in the Army. This is guilt which borders on insanity, and the tale is artistically told. “The Night of the Third” (1922) is also well done, about a particular act of violence in the night as the different factions successively gained control over a small town.
“Red Stone Moscow” (1922), “Moscow, City of Churches” (1923), and “Moscow Scenes” (1923) all paint nice pictures of Bolshevik Moscow, and it seems that despite it all, Bulgakov remained an optimist. “The City of Kiev” (1923) depicts the beautiful city on the Dneiper which had changed hands fourteen times during the revolution, Bulgakov attesting to having personally witnessed ten of those.
Not a perfect set of short stories by any means and not fantastical like his novels, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Quotes:
On bureaucracy in communist Russia, from “Notes on the Cuff”, I smiled over it:
“I am opposed to the death sentence. But if Madame Kritskaya is taken to be shot, I will go along to watch. The same for the young lady in the sealskin hat. And Lidochka, the clerk’s assistant.”
“In 1921 things were not quite the same as in 1924. To be more precise, it was impossible to just pack up and go wherever you wanted! Apparently, those who were charge of civilian travel reasoned something like this:
‘If everyone started traveling, then where would we be?’”
On communism, from “The Night of the Third”:
“But it’s like this: I am against the death penalty. Yes. Against. Karl Marx, I admit, I haven’t read, and I don’t even quite understand what connection he has with all this mess, but these two we’ve got to kill, like rabid dogs. They’re scum. Vile pogrom organizers and thieves.”
On genius, from “The Capital in a Notebook”:
“’Meyerhold is a genius,’ howled the Futurist. I don’t doubt it. Very possibly. Let him be a genius. I don’t care. But it should not be forgotten that geniuses are loners, and I am of the masses. I am of the audience. The theater is for me. I want to go to a theater I can understand.”
On guilt, from “The Red Crown”:
“I have no hope. Futilely, in burning anguish, I wait in the twilight for the dream to come – that old familiar room and the peaceful light from those radiant eyes. But all of that is gone forever.
The burden does not ease. And at night I wait submissively for the familiar horseman with the sightless eyes to come and say hoarsely: ‘I can’t leave the troop.’
Yes, I am hopeless. He will drive me to my grave.”
On Moscow, from “Moscow, City of Churches”:
“And, sitting at home on the fifth floor, in a room overflowing with secondhand books, I dream of how in the summer I will climb the Sparrow Hills to the spot where Napoleon stood, and I will see how the city’s churches gleam on seven hills, how Moscow breathes and glistens. Moscow is the mother.”
On religion, from “The City of Kiev”:
“The situation is this. The Old church despises the Living and the Autocephalous, the Living Church despises the Old and the Autocephalous, and the Autocephalous church despises the Old and the Living.
How the good work of all three churches, the hearts of whose priests are fed with evil, will end, I can say with the greatest confidence: with believers defecting en masse from all three churches and plunging into the abyss of starkest atheism. And the only ones to blame will be the priests themselves, who will have thoroughly discredited not only themselves but also the very idea of faith.”
On sadness, from “Notes on the Cuff”, haven’t we all been there…
“Despair. Above my head a foot-cloth and a black mouse is gnawing at my heart…”
Lastly this one, from “The Night of the Third”, I liked the ‘feel’ of it as a close to the violence which had come earlier, making it all seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things:
“In an hour the town was sleeping. Doctor Bakaleinikov was sleeping. The streets, boarded doorways, and closed gates were silent. There wasn’t a single person on the streets. And the distance was silent as well. Not a sound came from the river, from Slobodka with its anxious yellow fires, or from the bridge with its pale chain of streetlights. And the black ribbon which had crossed the city disappeared in the darkness on the other side. The sky hung like a velvet bedcurtain with diamond fragments, Venus, miraculously stuck back together, glittered over Slobodka, almost reddish, and there lay the white shoulder belt – the slivery Milky Way.”
April 24, 2025
Μέτριο στα καλύτερα
May 19, 2025
Most of these stories were unfortunately unmemorable. I’ve enjoyed Bulgakov as a long form writer and I fear I may stick to his novels and novellas from here on out. While I enjoyed the titular story the most, I should mention that it was also the longest. Strangeness as strong a Bulgakov’s cannot be restrained within only a couple pages - he needs room to breathe hence these just didn’t work for me.
February 22, 2017
Whilst I love Bulgakov's work, this was far too similar to A Country Doctor's Notebook; I stopped reading for that reason alone.
June 27, 2013
v .sk verzii vyhody alkoholizmu. fajn knizka
May 13, 2016
Worst book ever!!
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