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Diaboliad and Other Stories: New Translation
In Bulgakov's 'Diaboliad', the modest and unassuming office clerk Korotkov is summarily sacked for a trifling error from his job at the First Central Depot for the Materials for Matches, and tries to seek out his newly assigned superior Kalsoner, responsible for his dismissal. His quest through the labyrinth of Soviet bureaucracy takes on the increasingly surreal dimensions of a nightmare. This early satirical story, reminiscent of Gogol and Dostoevsky, was first published in 1924 and incurred the wrath of pro-Soviet critics. Along with the three other stories in this volume which also feature explorations of the absurd and bizarre, it provides a fascinating glimpse into the artistic development of the author of 'Master and Margarita'. Diaboliad, No.13 - The Elpit, Workers' Commune Building, A Chinese Tale, The Adventures of Chichikov.Diaboliad and Other Stories is part of Alma Classics's The Mikhail Bulgakov Collection which includes A Young Doctor's Notebook, A Dog's Heart, Black Snow, Diaboliad and Other Stories, Notes on a Cuff and Other Stories, The Fatal Eggs, The Life of Monsieur de Moliere, The Master and Margarita, The White GuardAlma Classics is committed to make available the widest range of literature from around the globe. All the titles are provided with an extensive critical apparatus, extra reading material including a section of photographs and notes. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition (or collated from the most authoritative editions or manuscripts) and edited using a fresh, intelligent editorial approach. With an emphasis on the production, editorial and typographical values of a book, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading the classics.
163 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 4, 2021
About the author
Mikhail Bulgakov
770 books8,151 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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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 7, 2023
Great premise, good start...but then it falls apart completely. The other stories are there too.
July 17, 2022
The best review I can think of is my reaction: What the f--k did I just read?
August 2, 2022
Did not enjoy the dichotomy that contrasted so heavily between depressing realism and optimistic weirdness. It was as random as it was disappointing.
April 25, 2025
Mikhail Bulgakov will go down in history as the most censored writer and yet the most admired one by his nemesis, responsible for that censure, the Soviet dictator, Josip Stalin.
This collection of short stories has only four pieces: three short stories and a novella, Diaboliad. More importantly, and to fill the publisher’s requirement of a minimum page length for commercial viability, I suppose, there is a 32-page summary of Bulgakov’s life and works at the end of the book, which makes for revelatory reading. Let me deal with this section first.
Trained as a doctor, Bulgakov was always being pressed into service by either the Whites or the Reds in the civil war that ran in the aftermath of the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917. During this period, he saw much senseless death and suffering that turned him off medicine and pushed him to writing. Stress in the theatre of war made him a morphine addict. He weaned himself off his addiction with no medication and went on to become a playwright and novelist. All his plays were either censored, shut down after brief runs, or forced to be severely edited. Some were censored by Stalin himself. So too with his stories. And his masterpiece, The Master & Margarita, was published 30 years after his death in 1940. His third and last wife saved his work for posthumous publication beginning in the 1960s when a thaw in censorship in the arts took hold among the Soviets. Despite these setbacks, Bulgakov was bold in writing satire about the Communist regime, with unforgettable characters.
In the novella, Diaboliad, we wonder whether protagonist Korotkov is in a bad dream that keeps getting worse and worse. He is in a procurement department somewhere in the Soviet bureaucracy and is paid his salary in produce when the country runs out of money. His pay is in safety matches that don’t light, his neighbour’s is in wine that tastes like vinegar. He makes an error in placing an order for women’s underwear and is fired. From then he descends into a tragi-comedy of errors to get his job back, reminiscent of Kafka’s The Trial. Complicating things is that his boss has a double and so does Korotkov. The key themes are the loss of identity and the paralysis of bureaucracy in the Soviet system.
“The Elpit Workers Commune Building” is about a pre-Communist aristocrat’s building taken over and turned into a workers’ apartment block. The caretaker cuts corners to save money and turns off the heating in winter. Residents try ad-hoc heating alternatives, including lighting illegal fires inside their apartments to keep warm, with disastrous consequences. Perhaps Bulgakov was trying to tell us that you cannot retrofit the old system into the new.
In “A Chinese Tale,” an immigrant from China signs up in the White Army after a peripatetic life of trying to find purpose in Russia. He becomes a crack shot and takes many enemy lives, but succumbs to the overwhelming Red onslaught. Was Bulgakov suggesting that outsiders need not apply to join Russia’s internal conflict?
In “The Adventures of Chichikov,” I thought Bulgakov was seeing the arrival of the Oligarchs almost 60 years before their time. Chichikov plays the system, forges documents, prints money, and becomes a trillionaire within the Soviet system. And then it all unravels. Unfortunately, Bulgakov defaults to a time-worn, hackneyed ending that I won’t give away due to spoilers, but it spoiled the metaphor of the creeping oligarchy that was building well.
The writing is energetic. Bulgakov’s characters are always jumping, flying, rushing, slipping, whipping by, and doors are forever crashing. Characters have wide age ranges: they could be “twenty-five or forty” or “fifty-five, even eighty.” Russian translation into English is not the smoothest, and therefore, the choreography of action is difficult to follow in places. And then, when Bulgakov adds magic realism to the mix in places, it gets bizarre: in Diaboliad when Korotkov confronts Davitz, the latter turns into a cat and escapes! Go figure!
Bulgakov is a difficult writer to read casually. Given the system of censorship he lived under, I’m sure all his writing had to be veiled in metaphor and symbolism that only his demographic at that time could understand and appreciate. And yet, he stands as a symbol of the unbeatability of the human spirit, even under the most trying and dark circumstances.
This collection of short stories has only four pieces: three short stories and a novella, Diaboliad. More importantly, and to fill the publisher’s requirement of a minimum page length for commercial viability, I suppose, there is a 32-page summary of Bulgakov’s life and works at the end of the book, which makes for revelatory reading. Let me deal with this section first.
Trained as a doctor, Bulgakov was always being pressed into service by either the Whites or the Reds in the civil war that ran in the aftermath of the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917. During this period, he saw much senseless death and suffering that turned him off medicine and pushed him to writing. Stress in the theatre of war made him a morphine addict. He weaned himself off his addiction with no medication and went on to become a playwright and novelist. All his plays were either censored, shut down after brief runs, or forced to be severely edited. Some were censored by Stalin himself. So too with his stories. And his masterpiece, The Master & Margarita, was published 30 years after his death in 1940. His third and last wife saved his work for posthumous publication beginning in the 1960s when a thaw in censorship in the arts took hold among the Soviets. Despite these setbacks, Bulgakov was bold in writing satire about the Communist regime, with unforgettable characters.
In the novella, Diaboliad, we wonder whether protagonist Korotkov is in a bad dream that keeps getting worse and worse. He is in a procurement department somewhere in the Soviet bureaucracy and is paid his salary in produce when the country runs out of money. His pay is in safety matches that don’t light, his neighbour’s is in wine that tastes like vinegar. He makes an error in placing an order for women’s underwear and is fired. From then he descends into a tragi-comedy of errors to get his job back, reminiscent of Kafka’s The Trial. Complicating things is that his boss has a double and so does Korotkov. The key themes are the loss of identity and the paralysis of bureaucracy in the Soviet system.
“The Elpit Workers Commune Building” is about a pre-Communist aristocrat’s building taken over and turned into a workers’ apartment block. The caretaker cuts corners to save money and turns off the heating in winter. Residents try ad-hoc heating alternatives, including lighting illegal fires inside their apartments to keep warm, with disastrous consequences. Perhaps Bulgakov was trying to tell us that you cannot retrofit the old system into the new.
In “A Chinese Tale,” an immigrant from China signs up in the White Army after a peripatetic life of trying to find purpose in Russia. He becomes a crack shot and takes many enemy lives, but succumbs to the overwhelming Red onslaught. Was Bulgakov suggesting that outsiders need not apply to join Russia’s internal conflict?
In “The Adventures of Chichikov,” I thought Bulgakov was seeing the arrival of the Oligarchs almost 60 years before their time. Chichikov plays the system, forges documents, prints money, and becomes a trillionaire within the Soviet system. And then it all unravels. Unfortunately, Bulgakov defaults to a time-worn, hackneyed ending that I won’t give away due to spoilers, but it spoiled the metaphor of the creeping oligarchy that was building well.
The writing is energetic. Bulgakov’s characters are always jumping, flying, rushing, slipping, whipping by, and doors are forever crashing. Characters have wide age ranges: they could be “twenty-five or forty” or “fifty-five, even eighty.” Russian translation into English is not the smoothest, and therefore, the choreography of action is difficult to follow in places. And then, when Bulgakov adds magic realism to the mix in places, it gets bizarre: in Diaboliad when Korotkov confronts Davitz, the latter turns into a cat and escapes! Go figure!
Bulgakov is a difficult writer to read casually. Given the system of censorship he lived under, I’m sure all his writing had to be veiled in metaphor and symbolism that only his demographic at that time could understand and appreciate. And yet, he stands as a symbol of the unbeatability of the human spirit, even under the most trying and dark circumstances.
April 5, 2021
um funcionário insignificante é despedido sem perceber sequer que falta grave terá cometido. tenta procurar o seu superior, responsável pela demissão (apesar de recém-nomeado para o cargo) e essa demanda, tão tortuosa e infinita como o labirinto da burocracia soviética, transforma-se numa espécie de pesadelo sem fim. há aqui algo similar a "o processo" de kafka - e curiosamente os dois livros são contemporâneos - sendo evidente o modo narrativo que viria a ser desenvolvido em "the master and margarita".
January 25, 2023
honestly gave me a headache
April 30, 2025
I only really liked "The Fatal Eggs"
June 6, 2025
Conjunto de vários contos, do qual se destaca o primeiro.
May 17, 2026
A fascinating collection of piercingly brilliant stories!
February 17, 2023
My least favourite Bulgakov so far - Kafkaesque in an annoying manner.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews