Bibliography - Novels and stories

English > Mikhail Bulgakov > Bibliography Russian originals

Грядущие перспективы
Perspectives for the future

Bulgakov's first published story, of which he said himself: "Once in 1919 when I was traveling at night by train I wrote a short story. In the town where the train stopped, I took the story to the publisher of a newspaper, who published it". Grozny, 1919

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В кафэ
In the café

Dark thoughts about Russia's future. Kavkazskaya Gazeta, 1920

Неделя просвещения
A week of education

The situation in the northern Caucasus after the departure of the Whites, 1921

В ночь на 3-е число
In the night to the third

About the night between February 2 and 3, 1919 when Bulgakov saw a terrible murder happening during the Civil War. This text is more or less the same as the last chapter of "The White Guard", Rossiya, Moscow, 1922

Торговый ренессанс
The commercial renaissance
1922

Чаша жизни
The cup of life
1922

Юрий Слезкин (силуэт)
Yuri Slezkin (silhouette)
1922

Необыкновенные приключения доктора
The unusual adventures of a doctor

Based on the life of the Bulgakovs between 1918 and 1920, 1922

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№13. - Дом Эльпит-Рабкоммуна
Number 13 - The Elpi-Rabkommun house
1922

Похождения Чичикова
Chichikov's adventures
1922

Красная корона
The red crown

Story with autobiografical references, situated during the fights in Kiev in October 1917. The narrator's brother has the same name as one of Bulgakov's brothers, 1922

Рабочий город-сад
The garden city for laborers

About the construction, near Moscow, of a garden city for the laborers of three factories nearby, following the English garden town model. The project's name was "Friendship of March 1, 1917", 1922

Записки на манжетах
Notes on the Cuff (The Capital in a notebook)

Nakanune, Moscow: 1922
Vozrozdenye, Moscow: 1923
Rossiya, Moscow: 1923
Zvezda Vostoka, Tashkent: 1973, n. 3.

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Бенефис лорда Керзона (От нашего московского корреспондента)
The merits of Lord Curzon (from our correspondent in Moscow)

About the mass demonstration organised in Moscow on May 12, 1923. It was organised to protest against the British Foreign Affairs Minister Lord George Curzon because he asked to be compensated by the Soviet Union after the confiscation of fishermen boats on the White Sea, Nakanune, Berlin: 1923

День нашей жизни
A day of our life

Everything the author saw and heard during one day in apartement number 50 of the house at Sadovaya Street 10, the famous haunted apartment from The Master and Margarita, Nakanune, Berlin: 1923

Киев-город
Kiev-city

Memories of events in Bulgakov's birth place Kiev and impressions of a trip to Kiev he made in 1923

Китайская история (6 картин вместо рассказа)
A Chinese story (6 images instead of a story)

About the life and destruction of the Chinese soldiers who fought in the Red Army, 1923

Шансон Д`Этэ
Chanson d'été
1923

Комаровское дело
The Komarov case

About the court case against the murderer Vasili Ivanovitch Komarov, 1923

Лестница в рай
The staircase in paradise
1923

Псалом
Psalm
1923

Налёт (В волшебном фонаре)
The robbery (in a magical lantern)
1923

Московские сцены
Scenes in Moscow

Description of the daily life in the apartment of one of Bulgakov's friends in Kozichinsky pereulok 12, 1923

Ханский огонь
The fire in the can
1924

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Воспоминание
Memories

Written after having heard the news of Lenin's death on January 21, 1924

В часы смерти (От нашего корреспондента)
The hours of the death (from our correspondent)

Report on the people of Moscow saying their last goodbye to Lenin, 1924.

Египетская мумия
The Egyptian Mummy
1924

Москва 20-х годов
Moscow, the year '20

Bulgakov didn't like the living conditions in the house at Bolshaya Sadovoya number 10, and later in the cooperative apartment in the house for writers at Nashokinsky pereulok 3-5, 1924

Белая гвардия
The White Guard

Novel
Rossiya, Moscow: 1924-1925 [incomplete]
First complete publication in Izbrannaya proza, 1966.

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Дьяволиада
Diaboliade

Short story
Almanach Nedra, IV, 1924
Nedra, Moscow: 1926

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Багровый остров
The Crimson island (feuilleton version)

Nakanune, Berlin: 1924
This story was rewritten in 1928 as a theatre play.

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Собачье сердце
Heart of a Dog
1925

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Роковые яйца
The Fatal Eggs

Novel
Almanach Nedra, VI, 1925
An experiment with biologically manipulated eggs goes wrong when the eggs of a chicken are replaced by other eggs.

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Богема
The bohémienne
1925

Путешествие по Крыму
Journey to the Crimea

A satire on the official travel guides for the Crimea, 1925

Под пятой
Under the fifth
1925-1926

Записки юного врача
A Country Doctor's Notebook

7 short stories published earlier in the magazine "The Medical Worker"
Krasnaya Panorama, Moscow: 1925-1926.
Medicinsky Rabotnik, Moscow: 1925-1926.
Rasskazy, Moscow: 1926.

Вьюга (Записки юного врача)
The blizzard (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

About an inexperienced and overworked doctor in a remote region of Russia. Although accustomed to seeing as many as a hundred or more patients in a day, a blizzard brings him unexpected relief, 1925 -1926

Звёздная сыпь
The Speckled Rash (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

A former district doctor in Russia reminisces about his frequent encounters with patients suffering from secondary syphilis ("the speckled rash"), 1925 -1926

Полотенце с петухом
Towel Embroidered With a Rooster (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

A young doctor, just graduated, arrives at the country hospital to which he is assigned. During the night his first patient arrives: a girl who was caught in a brake (a machine for threshing flax) and is now mangled and near death. No one expects her to live, 1925 -1926

Крещение поворотом
Baptism by rotation (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

A young doctor, recently assigned to a country hospital, is fraught with anxiety, especially over his lack of experience with obstetrical problems. One night the midwives call him; a woman is having a difficult labor, 1925 -1926

Стальное горло
The steel windpipe (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

A little girl is brought to the rural hospital by her father. It seems that she has been suffering from a sore throat and is now having difficulty breathing. The doctor looks into her throat; diphtheria is evident, 1925 -1926

Тьма египетская
Black as Egypt's Night (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

The physician-narrator celebrates his 24th birthday in the company of two midwives and a feldsher (physician's assistant), 1925 -1926

Пропавший глаз
The vanishing eye (A Country Doctor's Notebook)

Looking back on his first year of medical practice in an out-of-the-way section of Russia, a 25 year old physician reflects on how much he has changed both personally and professionally, 1925 -1926

Морфий
Morphine

Bomgard, a young doctor recently transferred from a rural area to a small town hospital, receives an urgent message from Polyakov, the doctor who replaced him. Polyakov has become ill; he needs medical help, 1926

Я убил
I committed a murder
1926

Тайному другу
To a secret friend
1929

Был май
It was in May

Written in May 1934, when Bulgakov had received hopeful news about a possible trip to Paris.

Жизнь господина де Мольера
The life of monsieur de Molière

The original title of this novel was simply "Molière". The widow Bulgakov gave it the title we know now. According to Bulgakov himself it's a "complete description of the life of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, named Molière, with some observations on dramatic arts", 1936

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Курс истории СССР
The path of history of the USSR

Unfinished manual of history for pupils of the 3rd and 4th year of primary school. On March 4, 1936 the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia announced a competition for the best manual. Bulgakov's text was never published during his life, 1936

Театральный роман
Black snow - Theatrical novel

Short story written between 1936 and 1939
Novy Mir, 1965

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Мастер и Маргарита
The Master and Margarita

Novel written between 1928 en 1940, subject of this website.
First censored publication in "Moskva", Moscow, nr. 11, 1966 and nr. 1, 1967
First full Russian edition, Frankfurt: 1969

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Bibliography - Theatre plays

Золотистый город
The Golden City

About the opening of the First Agricultural Exhibition at Park Kulturi in Moscow, 1923

Зойкина квартира
Zoya's apartment

This satire was stopped by a decision of the Glavrepertkom (the Central Committee for Repertoires) on March 17, 1929, after the 198th performance, 1925

Дни Турбиных
The Days of the Turbins

First performance on October 5, 1926
Published in Moscow; 1965
Based on the novel The White Guards

Бег (Восемь снов)
The Flight (Eight dreams)

Satire on the flight of White immigrants to the West. The play was never performed on stage during Bulgakov's life. A part of the seventh dream was published in 1932, 1926-1928.

Багровый остров
The crimson island (theatre version)

The first performance was organized at the Alexandr Jakovlevitsja Tairova Chamber Theatre on December 11, 1928. It was stopped in June 1929 after more than 60 performances, 1928

Кабала святош
The Cabal of Hypocrites

About Moliere's relations with the Court of Louis XIV. In 1929 it was first authorised to be performed, but then it was forbidden. Eventually it was played at the Moscow Art Theatre, but stopped again on March 9, 1936 after the publication of an article in the party newspaper Pravda where it was accused of having a "false content", 1929

Адам и Ева
Adam and Eve

The theme from the Bible is projected in a post-war society in which people have to survive in primitive circumstances. The play was never performed during Bulgakov's life, 1931

Война и мир
War and Peace

Adaptation of Ley Tolstoy's novel. Bulgakov wrote about it: "I started working on my adaptation of Ware and Peace on September 24, 1921… But I had to stop it and only today, on December 22, 1931, I started writing again". The play was never performed, 1921-1931

Полоумный Журден
Zhudren the Fool

Free adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme from 1670, to which Bulgakov added other characters from other plays of Molière, like Don Juan from Dom Juan and the servant Brindavoine (la Merluche) from L'avare. The play was never performed, 1932

Мёртвые души
Dead Souls

Adaptation of Nikolay Vasilevich Gogol's novel. It couldn't be performed on stage because a "person who knows the play very well" had said that there were already 160 adaptations of it, 1932

Блаженство (Сон инженера Рейна в четырех актах)
Bliss (The dream of engineer Ren in four acts)

A futurist presentation of the communist order in the future with ancient Greek characters. The play was never performed during Bulgakov's life, 1933-1934

Пушкин (Последние дни)
Pushkin (The last days)

The last days of the famous Russian poet. The piece was never performed during Bulgakov's life, 1934

Иван Васильевич
Ivan the Terrible

Ivan the Terrible is brought by a time machine to a crowded apartment in the 1930's Moscow, 1934-1935

Дон Кихот
Don Quichote

Based on Cervantes' novel. Although many promises were made, the play was never performed during Bulgakov's life, 1937-1938

Батум
Batum

About Stalin's early years in Batum. Despite numerous preparations the play was never performed during Bulgakov's life, 1938

Bibliography - Libretto's

Чёрное море
The Black Sea

Opera about the civil war with music written by Sergey Ivanovich Pototski. Bulgakov's libretto was eventually rejected, 1936

Минин и Пожарский
Minin and Pozharsky

About Minin and Pozharsky, who chased away the Polish from the Kremlin with a volunteers' army in 1612. Musical score by Boris Vladimirovich Asafev (1884-1949), who used the nickname Igor Glebov. Asafev was a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and later, in 1948-1949, president of the Composers' Union. The opera was never performed on stage, 1938

Рашель
Rachel

Based on Guy de Maupassant 's novel Madame Fifi from 1882. Bulgakov wrote this libretto on request for the Bolshoi Theater's assistant director Iakoba Leontevicha Leonteva, 1938.

Bibliography - Film scripts

Ревизор
The revisor

Adaptation of Nikolay Vasilevich Gogol's play. The film was never made.



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