SOURCE: "The Diaboliad Collection," in Bulgakov: Life and Work, Ardis Publishers, 1984, pp. 105-22.

In the following excerpt, Proffer provides an overview of the five stories that comprise the 1925 Russian collection D'iavoliada (Diaboliad, and Other Stories).

The editor Angarsky accepted the long story "Diaboliad" for his Nedra anthology in the hopes that it would find favor with readers tired of literary experiments which neglected plot. One reader who did regard it as the most important work in Nedra No. 4 (1924) was Evgeny Zamyatin, the famous author of the anti-utopian novel We. Zamyatin was an influential critic who was still on the board of the Leningrad Writers' Union despite his controversial novel, which could not be published in Russia. He might be considered politically suspect by some, but his literary opinions carried weight.

Since what Zamyatin had to say in his review of the Nedra anthology reveals many of the literary...