The Early Plays of Mikhail Bulgakov

by Mikhail Bulgakov, Ellendea Proffer (Editor)

The largest collection available in English of the best Soviet playwright of the twentieth century. This edition The Days of the Turbins, Zoya's Apartment, Flight, The Crimson Island and A Cabal of Hypocrites (Moliere).

Genres: Russian Literature, Literature

418 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (Russian: Михаил Булгаков) was a Russian writer, medical doctor, and playwright. His novel The Master and Margarita , published posthumously, has been called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.

He also wrote the novel The White Guard and the plays Ivan Vasilievich, Flight (also called The Run ), and The Days of the Turbins . He wrote mostly about the horrors of the Russian Civil War and about the fate of Russian intellectuals and officers of the Tsarist Army caught up in revolution and Civil War.

Some of his works ( Flight , all his works between the years 1922 and 1926, and others) were banned by the Soviet government, and personally by Joseph Stalin, after it was decided by them that they "glorified emigration and White generals". On the other hand, Stalin loved The Days of the Turbins (also called The Turbin Brothers ) very much and reportedly saw it at least 15 times.

Reviews

[Tina Tamman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a different edition and in Russian, primarily because I wanted to know what "Zoya's Apartment" was all about. I had seen the play in a Russian-language theatre and, Russian not being my first language, was completely baffled, so decided to read it for further enlightenment. Now that I've read it, I feel I'm not much better off; I see no reason to put on a play like this today. And if it is to show confusion and greed in the Soviet Union of the 1920s, I'd say Nikolay Erdman's "Suicide" is much more illuminating and definitely more amusing. The array of characters is puzzling for a start: there is a drug addict, two Chinese opportunist drug dealers, one of whom commits murder, a bureaucrat, a wheeler-dealer, several ambitious women. Amidst the lot Zoya tries to survive by setting up a fashion studio, but she is not helped by the circumstances. Maybe the play has simply survived because it is by Bulgakov.

[Guy Salvidge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've now read practically everything of Bulgakov's written in English, including a biography of him, a biography by him and a book of his letters. No doubt he was a great playwright, but the impact of these plays is lessened on the page and without the specific historical context to understand the minutiae. 'The Days of the Turbins' is adapted from Bulgakov's novel The White Guard, but pales in comparison to the novel. 'Zoya's Apartment' is an amusing piece about the unseemly goings on of a certain madame and her 'workshop' in the wee hours. 'Flight' may well be a great work, but I found it extremely elliptical and thus I ended up skipping it. 'The Crimson Island' was my favourite, a play-within-a-play that satirises the revolution and makes a number of unsubtle hints about the playwright's plight. 'A Cabal of Hypocrites' is similarly pointed in its comparison of historical epochs and their associated toadies. Each play has a useful contextual introduction to go with it, which I found useful. In short, this is good for Bulgakov completionists or those interested specifically in his dramatic works..

[feifei · Rating 3 out of 5]

not too sure what to make of flight. obviously has elements of political satire but it would be reductive to just interpret this as a criticism of the white army. i didn’t appreciate the comedic elements in this very much, and i have a longstanding problem with the way that russian authors portray romance—even in dostoevsky’s white nights it took a while for the love story to make sense, so the relationship between serafima and golubkov just seemed rather shallow to me. the part that i liked most about the play is at the very end when the cast is reunited, briefly, in constantinople and they part ways once more: lyuska to the bright lights of paris, khludov back to the battle field, and serafima and golubkov borne ceaselessly back into the past to a homeland that will never quite be the same again. so i found the ending to be very beautiful:

SERAFIMA: what was it, this past year and a half, seryozha? dreams? explain it to me! where, why did we flee…? i want to be on karavan street again, i want to see snow again, i want to forget everything, as if it hadn’t happened!
GOLUBKOV: none of it happened, none of it—it was all delirium! forget it, forget! a month will pass, we’ll make it, we’ll return, and then the snow will fall and efface our footprints… let’s go! let’s go!
SERAFIMA: let’s go! the end.
… Constantinople begins to go dark and goes dark forever.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, translations weren't great. But the plays themselves, brava!

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Anke · Rating 4 out of 5]

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