The snowstorm (Bulgakov)

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Mikhail Bulgakov around 1935

The Snowstorm ( Russian Вьюга , Vjuga ) is a short story by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov , which appeared in 1926 in issues 2 and 3 of the Moscow magazine Medizinski rabotnik . The author added the story to his collection of Young Doctor's Notes .

A winter's day in Russia: the first-person narrator, a completely overworked country doctor who has been running the Nikolska village hospital ( Sytschowka district in the Smolensk governorate ) as a young professional for six months , finally only has two patients sitting in the waiting room. The cause: snow storm.

When the doctor begrudge a hot bath after weeks of hard practice work, he is a fireman, which results from the twelve versts , startled fought remote Schalometjewo by the snowstorm. The clerk, Palchikov, wanted to drive his bride through the village in a sleigh. During the rapid exit through the gate of the farmstead, the girl hit her forehead against the upper gate beam. A young venereologist practicing on site remains perplexed and asks the narrator for support from his colleagues.

The doctor lets himself be persuaded by the fireman, packs the necessary utensils, takes a Browning with him, sets off on the usually one-hour drive, arrives after two and a half hours and can only diagnose the base of the skull fracture in the clerk's bride . The two young doctors have to face the rapidly approaching death, trembling and full of hatred. Death.

Despite multiple requests from several sensible Shalometyevo residents, the narrator cannot spend the night, but has to go back to his three typhoid fever on the same day due to the snowstorm . Chased by a pack of wolves, the narrator uses his Browning.

At home, the frozen doctor crawls under the covers and swears that if they call him somewhere again, he won't drive. But the snowstorm outside the window mockingly whistles its song, which could mean: Wetten, dass? You will drive!

German-language editions

Output used:

  • The blizzard. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . Pp. 45–60 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 Medizinski rabotnik - about employees in the health service
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 59, 2nd Zvu