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[MINIATURE] Rasskazy [i.e. Short Stories]

Bulgakov, M.

Item #2067

Moscow: Poligrafiia: Detskaia kniga, 1988. 62, [2] pp.: ill. 10x6,8 cm. In original cloth with colored lettering and stamped illustration. Stains on back cover, otherwise mint.

This miniature edition is a part of a book series “Library of the magazine ‘Poligraphy’”. The foreword was written by B.S. Miagkov. The book contains 6 full-page illustrations by artists D. Nadezhdin, M. Petrenko and A. Lytkin.

The collection consists of the preface about Mikhail Bulgakov and his early 1920s works “Sorok sorokov” [Forty Forties], “Bogema” [Bohemia], “Seriia nol’ shest’ #0660243” [Series Zero Six
#0660243].
“Sorok sorokov” [Forty Forties] is Bulgakov’s witness account on early Soviet Moscow where he moved in 1921. It was first published in the Moscow newspaper ‘Nakanune’ [On the Eve] in 1923.
“Sorok sorokov” is a Russian expression denoting the entire set of Moscow churches, as well as a huge number of things. In the early 20th century, the million-strong city of Moscow counted about 1600 churches of various religions. Most of them were Orthodox which were divided into groups, according to church areas. One area was named “sorok”. The huge number of Moscow churches became the reason why it was called the golden domed city or the city of forty forties.
The work includes four parts. The first one overviews the city during “wartime communism” and devastation. Others describe Moscow during the NEP period. In parts 2 and 3, the narrator stands on the roof of the Nirnsee house. The editorial office of the newspaper “Nakanune” was located in this house. And this very roof became the site from which the main character of the story “Diaboliad’ committed suicide. The 4th part tells about signboards and advertising posters, illumination, trams, radio concerts, and other innovations of the time. The short story “Bohemia” was first published in the magazine ‘Krasnaia Niva’ [Red Field] in 1925. It is an autobiographical work based on the history of the creation and production of Bulgakov's play ‘Sons of the Mullah’ in Vladikavkaz in early 1921 and the playwrigh’'s subsequent trip to Tiflis (Tbilisi) with the proceeds. These events are also described in “Notes on Cuffs” (1922–1923). The feuilleton mentioned in Bohemia, for which the author received “1200 rubles and a promise that I will end up in a special department if I publish anything similar again”, is likely “The Week of Enlightenment”. In “Bohemia”, Bulgakov considers writing “The Week of Enlightenment” as one of the four crimes of his life, along with wasting money on cinema intended for a physics textbook, marrying Tatyana Lappa against the will of his mother, as well as a forced statement that the play “Sons of the Mullah” was good, so he was going to Tiflis to stage this revolutionary play. Attempts to stage the play in Tiflis and Batum were unsuccessful, but it continued to be performed in Grozny and Vladikavkaz until the 1930s. “Series Zero Six” is a short story published in the magazine ‘Vecherniaia Moskva’ [Evening Moscow] in 1924. This feuilleton was dedicated to early Soviet lotteries. As it described by the author, tickets were forcibly given at savings bank offices instead of the money people wanted to get. Advertisements for contemporary lotteries and loans were published in all periodical editions of that time.

Copies are located in Columbia, Stanford, Yale Universities.

Price: $250.00