SOURCE: An introduction to Diaboliad, and Other Stories by Mikhail Bulgakov, edited by Ellendea Proffer and Carl R. Proffer, translated by Carl R. Proffer, Indiana University Press, 1972, pp. vii-xx.

Ellendea and Carl Proffer are translators, critics, and editors of Russian literature, with a special interest in the writings of Mikhail Bulgakov. In the following excerpt from an essay written in 1971, they provide an overview of the short fiction collected in Diaboliad, and Other Stories.

The Irish filid, or poet, frequently used his magic talent for satirical purposes, and ancient Irish laws suggest that the authorities came to regard these poetic satirists as a serious social problem. Thus Aithrine the Importunate was eventually walled into his fortress with his sons and daughters and burned. He was not the first nor the last satirist to suffer at the hands of societies and governments fearing the metaphorical swords of the written...