The steel throat

Mikhail Bulgakov around 1935

The steel throat ( Russian Стальное горло , Stalnoje gorlo ) is a short story by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov , which appeared in 1925 in issue 33 of the Leningrad magazine Krasnaja panorama , an offshoot of the daily Krasnaja gaseta . The author added the story to his collection of Young Doctor's Notes .

The first-person narrator, a 24-year-old city dweller, graduated with honors from the medical faculty of the university almost two months ago and is starting his job in the remote Nikolska hospital ( Sychovka district in the Smolensk governorate ). On November 29, 1917, during a snowstorm, three-year-old Lidka was brought to him, a hopeless case of diphtheria . The child can hardly breathe. So that the little one can breathe again, the newcomer decides to take the last resort, the tracheotomy . He's never done that before - slit the throat and put a silver tube in. He only knows that from the textbook. In the relevant figure, the matter is presented clearly and simply on patient paper.

The mother does not agree to the surgical procedure. The doctor has the mother taken to the waiting room. There the field detective Demjan Lukitsch still receives the consent. Two midwives assist with the field scissors during the operation. The Feldscher faints during the operation and pulls out the windpipe with the hook when he falls.

One of the two midwives praises the doctor; certifies him cold-bloodedness. The successful operation made the doctor famous in the area. People in Nikolska tell themselves that he put a steel throat into Lidka. Two months after the operation, the doctor has one hundred and ten patients in one day.

German-language editions

Output used:

• The steel throat. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . Pp. 23–33 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

• The text
  • Wikisource Стальное горло (Булгаков) (Russian)
  • online at Lib.ru (Russian)
• Entry in the Laboratory of Fantastics (Russian)
• Notes in the Bulgakov encyclopedia bulgakov.ru (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Russian Красная панорама - Red Panorama ( Memento of the original from May 30, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Russian Красная газета - Red Newspaper