Fatal eggs. Bulgakov M.A.

The first large work of Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov was his novel “White Guard”. He began to be published in 1925 on the pages of the magazine "Russia". In this work, Bulgakov acted as a strong realist who subtly reflected both the vortices of revolutionary events and the experiences of his heroes. No wonder Maximilian Voloshin wrote that this novel can be compared with the debut publications of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy. Bulgakov’s stories from the “Notes of the Young Doctor” are saturated with the same burning realism. However, the writer's talent was wider than the ability to reflect the surrounding reality.

We know another Bulgakov - a fantasier, an inventor, even a science fiction writer who can spin an absolutely incredible plot and state it with a captivating reliability. Bulgakov introduced to Russian literature the first third of the 20th century that which she often had not enough before - entertaining, intrigue, sparkling plan. The story "Fatal Eggs" is a brilliant example of this. Her plot, fantastic and incredible, captivates, fascinates, does not allow her to break away from reading. She is full of “terrible and inexplicable” events and amazing surprises. At the same time, Bulgakov sets out his incredible plot with smiling, with irony, in a quasi -siser tone. This is not the fiction of Wells or Belyaev, in which futuristic constructions are built on very real technological soil. For a fantastic Bulgakov game, such a soil is not needed. The same crafty fire of an indefatigable dreamer also illuminates the “devil” - a story about how the Gemini destroyed the clerk. As in the “fatal eggs”, everything is built here for chance, from which the most incredible consequences flow. In both stories, Bulgakov mocks gently and even slyly mocks at life, pouring its contents into fantastic forms, inside which all the details of the Soviet life are amazingly preserved. Without this wonderful skill that Bulgakov possessed fully, would not appear later by either his “dog heart” or “Master and Margarita”.

The book is illustrated by the drawings of the modern St. Petersburg artist Tatyana Kosach. She graduated from the History Faculty of St. Petersburg State University and is a specialist in the art of the Middle Ages. Her icon painting and graphic work can be found in private collections of painting lovers in Russia, the USA, Italy and France. In the series of “Library of World Literature”, her illustrations are decorated with the novels “American Tragedy”, “Financier”, “Titan”, “Stoic” by Theodore Dreizer, “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, “White Guard” by Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov and the stories of Ambrose Birsz.