At once horrific, hilarious, and surreal, A Young Doctor’s Notebook dramatizes author, playwright, and erstwhile physician Mikhail Bulgakov’s experiences practicing medicine as a young and largely inexperienced doctor in a small village hospital in Smolensk Governorate in revolutionary Russia between 1916 and 1918.
Fresh from medical school in the winter of 1917, the young and inexperienced Dr. Bomgard assumes the role of the only doctor in a provincial Russian hospital. Dealing with a slew of cases ranging from the horrific to the hilarious to the surreal, Bomgard recounts his solitary time practicing medicine among the superstitious, uneducated, and deeply suspicious populace of his new town.Bomgard exhibits relentless patience and determination while fighting the daily uphill battle against the various challenges of an inexperienced, young country doctor, including scouring ten textbooks at once, hours before a complicated surgery, dealing with patients who either refuse to take their medicine or take it all at once, and handling a colleague with a dangerous morphine addiction. Somehow, despite the near-constant chaos, Bomgard continues to focus on the life-affirming moments that make his efforts worth the uncertainty, isolation, and lost sleep.A semi-autobiographical collection of short stories by author, playwright, and erstwhile physician Mikhail Bulgakov, A Young Doctor’s Notebook chronicles the author’s experiences practicing in a small village hospital in Smolensk Governorate in revolutionary Russia between 1916 and 1918. The collection of tales was originally published in individual installments in Russian medical journals, and was later compiled into a set by scholars of Bulgakov’s work. It has since been adapted by the BBC in 2013, starring Daniel Radcliffe and John Hamm. The Alma Classics edition of A Young Doctor’s Notebook is translated by Hugh Aplin with the authorization of the Bulgakov Estate and Andrew Nurnberg Associates. Hugh Aplin is currently Head of Russian at Westminster School, London. His translation reflects the clear, humorous, and profound language of the original with colloquial English idioms and phrasings. Readers without previous experience in Russian literature will find this translation to be accessible and fun, even though the subtext of Bulgakov’s works is the murky, mysterious underbelly of Soviet culture.
Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian playwright, novelist, and physician best known for his satirical classic, The Master and Margarita. Born in Kiev in 1891, Bulgakov was drawn to both literature and the theater from his early youth. As a young man, Bulgakov studied to become a doctor and volunteered with the Red Cross during the First World War. He practiced medicine for some years after WWI, and was eventually drafted as an army physician during the Russian Civil War. He contracted typhus and nearly died at his posting, and after a shaky recovery he began his professional transition from physician to playwright and author. From 1919 until his death in 1940, his plays, short stories, and novels enjoyed degrees of critical and popular success, but Bulgakov also endured a great deal of criticism and censorship due to his propensity to mercilessly satirize the ethical and political shortcomings of life in the Soviet Union. His witty, biting, and frequently grotesque storytelling style caught the eye of Joseph Stalin, earning him some degree of political immunity. By the end of the 1920s, however, Bulgakov’s career had ground to a halt due to a government ban on the performance or publication of his work. Bulgakov’s relationship with Stalin protected him from arrest and execution, but he could not publish any of his works or stage his plays for the remaining years of his life. Over the next decade, the ailing writer began work on The Master and Margarita, which would be his last major creative effort before his death. A brilliant satire of Soviet society, it was not published until 1966, 26 years after his death. Although he never experienced stable success and renown during his life, Bulgakov’s body of work is now firmly situated within the pantheon of great 20th century Russian literature and theater.
