Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov

Young Dr. Bromgard has come to a small country town to assume a new practice. No sooner has he arrived than he receives word that a colleague, Dr. Polyakov, has fallen gravely ill. Before Bromgard can go to his friend's aid, Polyakov is brought to his practice in the middle of the night with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and, barely conscious, gives Bromgard his journal before dying. What Bromgard uncovers in the entries is Polyakov's uncontrollable and merciless descent into morphine addiction -- his first injection to ease his back pain, the thrill of the drug as it overtakes him, the looming signs of addiction, and the feverish final entries before his death.

The Civil War is drawing to an end in Russia. The White Army is disintegrating and a wave of refugees is about to descend on Turkey, and then spread across Europe. Bulgakov's play follows the fate of a small group of Russians from the Crimea to Constantinople to Paris. It is a tragic comedy that was never staged during the life of its author due to the opposition of Stalin. "There is no doubt that this is one of the masterpieces of world theatre and in this solid production of a terrific translation it is well worth catching." Peter Scott-Presland reviewing the production at the Jack Studio.

In this collection of short stories, drawing heavily from the author's own experiences as a medical graduate on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Bulgakov describes a young doctor's turbulent and often brutal introduction to his practice in the backward village of Muryovo. Using a sharply realistic and humorous style, Bulgakov reveals his doubts about his own competence and the immense burden of responsibility, as he deals with a superstitious and poorly educated people struggling to enter the modern age. This acclaimed collection contains some of Bulgakov's most personal and insightful observations on youth, isolation and progress.

This is a title in the Bristol Classical Press Russian Texts series, in Russian with English notes, vocabulary and introduction. Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) is well-known for his novel, "The Master and Margarita", published posthumously in the 1970s. In his own life he was best known as a playwright, with plays running at several of the leading theatres in Moscow during the 1920s and 1930s. "Flight" takes as its subject the defeated Whites as they flee the Reds and emigrate to Constantinople and Paris. The play was too politically controversial to be staged in Bulgakov's lifetime. Couched in the form of eight "dreams" rather than conventional scenes, it hovers between tragedy and comedy.

Biographical account of the seventeenth-century playwright, producer and actor, tells of his early struggles, his loves and career