1. From 1921-24 Bulgakov lived at 10 Bolshaya Sadovaya Street in flat No 50. The flat and its environment are referred to in many of his works. [It is the flat in which Woland takes up residence in the novel The Master and Margarita].

2. Bulgakov had been on the Gudok staff since the end of 1922 or the beginning of 1923, first in the 'Readers' letters' section of the paper, then as a sketch-writer.

3. SemyonKalmens—financial director of the Moscow branch of the newspaper Gudok.

4. The lame 'captain' — probably Zuzenko, a sea captain, employee of the newspaper Na vakhte (On Watch) [the newspaper of the Seamen's Union]. Zuzenko is mentioned in Konstantin Paustovsky's memoirs.

5. Nakanune—a Russian-language newspaper issued from Berlin. [See translator's introduction].

6. Nikolay Gladyrevsky — a doctor and a family friend of the Bulgakovs.

7. The book in question is Mikhail Chekhov, Anton Chekhov and his Themes (Anton Chekhov i ego syuzhety), Moscow, 1923.

8. Isay Grigorevich Lezhnev, editor of the journal Rossiya (Russia) [in which Bulgakov published his first novel, The White Guard, in 1925].

9. Boris Zemsky— the brother of Andrey Zemsky, husband of Bulgakov's sister Nadezhda.

10. Petr Nikanorovich Zaytsev — secretary and deputy editor of the publishing house 'Nedra' [which published the almanac Nedra in which Bulgakov's stories Diaboliad and The Fatal Eggs first appeared].

11. Probably Vera Oskarovna Stankevich — philologist and literary critic.

12. There had been talk of publishing Notes on Shirt-Cuffs as a separate book.

13. Maybe David Kiselgof— a lawyer and acquaintance of the Bulgakovs. [David Kiselgof later became the husband of Bulgakov's first wife Tatyana Lappa].

14. [ROL?] Aaron — Aaron Erlikh, journalist and writer, who worked at that time on Gudok; Pototsky — deputy of the Gudok Party life section.

15. Lines from the poem by Vasily Zhukovsky 'The Bard in the Camp of the Russian Warriors', the three first lines of which Bulgakov took as an epigraph to his play Flight. According to Marietta Chudakova, this is 'the programme of the future line of the Master [in The Master and Margarita], which expresses to its fullest extent the theme running through all Bulgakov's works, the peace of immortality as the end goal of existence'.

16. [This is the next line from Zhukovsky's 'Bard in the Camp of the Russian Warriors', following directly on from the four lines quoted earlier in the entry for 23 December].

17. [Vikenty Veresaev — a doctor-turned-writer who had established his literary reputation at the start of the 1900s and with whom Bulgakov in 1923 had struck up a close friendship.] Zaytsev — see note 10. N N Nikandrov, V T Kirillov, N N Lyashko, V L Ivov Rogachevsky — all Soviet writers.

18. Evdoksiya Nikitina — a literary scholar, in whose flat literary gatherings were held, known as 'Nikitin Subbotniks' [subbotnik — voluntary unpaid work, usually done on Saturdays].

19. Lyubov Evgenevna Belozerskaya, Bulgakov's second wife.

20. 'The Green Lamp' — one of the Moscow literary-artistic circles of the period.

21. Yury Potekhin — a writer who also worked on Gudok.

22. 'Change of Landmarks', [see translator's introduction].

23. Sergey Auslender — writer.

My diary: under the iron heel

Abstract