Unburned Manuscripts. A gift set of facsimile editions

The set of the books «Unburned Manuscripts. A gift set of facsimile editions»

The set includes:

• The Master and Margarita (novel)
• The Dog's Heart (novella)
• The White Guard (novel)

The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita has been reprinted several times in the half-century since its first publication in the Moscow magazine. It has been translated into many languages, and has been published with illustrations and commentaries. Bulgakov has been and is still being debated, and the writer's work does not leave readers and admirers from different countries indifferent. The novel is included in school literature programs. When summarizing the results of the twentieth century, it was recognized as the best novel in several countries. The book you are holding in your hands is a facsimile of one of the text's variants, and, of course, cannot claim to be a research novelty or a new reading. The peculiarity of the publication lies in the fact that it takes the reader to the era of "samizdat", which is practically unknown to the grandchildren and even great-grandchildren of the "first readers" of the novel. Nadezhda Afanasievna Bulgakova-Zemska, the writer's first biographer and keeper of the family archive, received the typescript of the novel in 1940 during the last weeks of her elder brother's life.

It was this copy that her daughters, Olga, the eldest, and Olena, the youngest, read before leaving for evacuation in 1941. Their mother introduced them to the novel, rightly fearing for the safety of the archive. Fortunately, all the manuscripts, letters, and photographs that remained in Moscow during the war survived. The publication is intended for readers and admirers of Mikhail Bulgakov's work, but perhaps, re-reading the familiar lines, you will want to read them aloud to your children and grandchildren. Perhaps they will be able to feel the pleasure of the "rustle of the pages" and look up from the screen for a while. This is a feature of the classics - to move into the category of youth literature.

The Dog`s Heart 

Mikhail Bulgakov's story "The Heart of a Dog" was written in January-March 1925. It is an outspoken political satire on the leadership of the Country of Soviets of the mid-20s. Therefore, after a short "protocol" on May 7, 1926, the OGPU seized the manuscript of the story, and it was classified as a prohibited work. For some time, there was a belief that there were three surviving editions of the text in the Russian State Library. As a result, in the USSR, the novel "The Heart of a Dog" was distributed only through samizdat until the late 80s of the twentieth century. In 1967, the magazines "Grani" (Frankfurt) and "Student" (London) first published the story, but, unfortunately, with many inaccuracies and errors. In 1987, the Znamya magazine published the story, prepared by M. O. Chudkova. However, this edition was also based on a foreign list from 1967 with many errors. Only in 1989, under the editorship of L. M. Yanovska, was a version of the story that fully corresponded to the original published for the first time. It was included in the two-volume book "Selected Works of Mikhail Bulgakov" by the Kyiv publishing house "Dnipro". After that, the story was reprinted several times and translated into many foreign languages.
The book you are holding in your hands is a facsimile of one of the versions of the typewritten text, which was discovered in the early twenty-first century in the home archive of the sisters Marika and Cecile Chimishkian, who were members of Bulgakov's inner circle, by the famous collector S. Bobrov. The authenticity of the presented text was recognized by M. O. Chudakova when analyzing the corrections in it - they were made by the hand of M. A. Bulgakov. The originality of the publication lies in the fact that it takes the reader to the era of "Selfprint", which is practically unknown to the current generation of "first readers" of the story.

The White Guard

Bulgakov's first novel, The Turbine Days (The White Guard), describes the tragic fates of the intelligentsia at the turn of the 1917 revolutionary events and the Civil War in Ukraine at the end of 1918. The tragedy of a country torn apart by political strife is shown through the example of one family. The novel is largely autobiographical and is more relevant to Ukraine today than ever before. The uniqueness of this edition lies in the fact that the texts of the Paris editions of 1929 and 1937 have been updated with all the corrections known to date and the original typewritten texts presented in the book as illustrations. The book uses the numbering of the Paris editions and the through-page numbering of the publisher.
The White Guard is Bulgakov's third work after the story The Heart of a Dog and the novel The Master and Margarita, published by ADEF-Ukraine, which not only introduces the reader to the texts of the classic of world literature, but also returns to the era of Bulgakov.