Records on cuffs

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Mikhail Bulgakov around 1935

Notes on cuffs ( Russian Записки на манжетах , Sapiski na manschetach ) is a two-part story by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov . The first part is about the Caucasus and appeared on June 18, 1922 in the Russian-language literary magazine Nakanune in Berlin . The second part is in Moscow and was published in 1923 in issue 5 of the Moscow literary magazine Rossija . Both parts were printed together in 1987 in issue 6 of the bimonthly Moscow magazine Teatr .

background

The text can be taken as an autobiographical sketch. Bulgakov went to Moscow in December 1917.

The author worked in the People's Commissariat for Education as secretary of the main publishing department. Up until its closure at the end of 1919, this main department - called Lito for short in Russian - had published 115 titles on Russian Classics ( Chernyshevsky , Turgenev , Pushkin , Herzen , Belinsky , Gogol , Goncharov , Dostoyevsky , Kolzov , Krylow , Nikitin , Pomyalovsky , Saltykov- Shchedrin , Uspensky , Chekhov and Lev Tolstoy ).

Bulgakov stayed in Vladikavkaz in the summer of 1920 , met a number of professional colleagues there in the Caucasus - including Ryurik Ivanev and Ossip Mandelstam , wrote his first play and went back to Moscow in September 1921.

content

Caucasus

The first-person narrator, Misha, is stuck in the unnamed Ossetian city, a “crow's corner at the foot of the mountains” on the banks of the Terek , with typhus relapse . He lacks the money to emigrate to Paris . So he stays in the country and reads Melnikov-Pechersky . Juri Sljoskin seeks Misha at the bedside and wants to make the vacant position as litleiter (head of the literature department) attractive to him. Jewreinow and Ryurik Ivev - both on their way to Petersburg and Moscow, respectively - give each other the handle. Ossip Mandelstam, traveling from Moscow to Tbilisi , stops by. Pilnjak and Serafimowitsch make a flying visit. The former travels to Rostov wearing a women's cardigan and the latter comes from northern Russia. Out of sheer hunger, Mischa accepts an engagement at the theater. He made a complaint to Chekhov on the subject of humor . Red Army soldiers present in the hall protest. Nothing will come of the planned Pushkin evening. Such evenings in the theater are prohibited. Misha wants to conquer hunger; sells his cylinder . That's a drop in the ocean. Together with a legal assistant and his wife - all three of them are starving - Misha writes his first play within a week. The three-act act took place after just fourteen days. The fee - 200,000 rubles - allows extensive meals. However, the winter of 1921 was not enough to flee to Paris.

Misha's way to Moscow leads via Zichidsiri and Machindschauri.

Moscow

A poster with the huge letters Zjuwlam captivates the newcomer. What does zjuwlam mean? Very simple: Mayakovsky's twelfth anniversary . The always hungry Mischa is looking for the litab. He meets Meyerhold on the wrong track through the corridors and floors .

Direct hit - Mischa was appointed secretary of Litab at the end of 1921 and no longer had to go hungry. But the ruble doesn't roll that fast. Mischa leads a finally successful paper war against the bureaucracy. Misha's boss is worse off. This leader has already completed 113 questionnaires and has not yet been confirmed in office. Litab has a staffing budget of eighteen. The freshly baked secretary initially envisions Gorky , Veressajew , Schmeljow , Saizew and Serafimowitsch as lecturers. Nobody comes.

The quick drafting of concise solutions is paid for quite well .

One morning Misha comes to work and the Litab is gone. He searches and combs the corridors floor by floor. Mischa finds it. The colleagues had not informed him of the move.

On a day of downsizing, the Litab is dissolved. Mischa is the last to leave office.

German-language editions

Output used:

  • Records on cuffs. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . Pp. 174-218 in Ralf Schröder (ed.): Bulgakow. The red crown. Autobiographical stories and diaries. Volk & Welt, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-353-00944-2 (= Vol. 5: Collected Works (13 Vols.))

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Накануне - The evening before
  2. ↑ Russian Russia
  3. ↑ Russian theater
  4. ↑ Russian lito
  5. ↑ Lito = literature department; the o comes from department - Russian отдел - otdel
  6. ↑ Russian Ryurik Ivanev
  7. ↑ Russian Juri Lwowitsch Sljoskin
  8. ↑ Russian Jewreinow
  9. ↑ Russian Цихидзири - Zichidsiri
  10. ↑ Russian Machindschauri
  11. ↑ Russian Дювлам - Djuwlam
  12. ↑ Litab - What is meant is the literature section Lito mentioned above.
  13. ↑ Russian Boris Konstantinowitsch Saizew