A Russian Writer Speaks to Stalin
Bulgakov, Mikhail
THROUGH MOST OF HIS CAREER, Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita, was under attack by Party critics. By 1930 his plays were barred from the Soviet stage, and ultimately a...
...M. TIKOS Bulgakov's Letter to the Soviet Government I DIRECT THE FOLLOWING LETTER to the Government of the U.S.S.R...
...But when the German press writes that The Crimson Island is the first call in the Soviet Union for the freedom of the press (Young Guard, No...
...44, 1927...
...11...
...I cannot tell how utterly criminal the critics will find it, but I ask one thing of the witnesses: do not seek for things that are not there...
...5. And finally, here—in my doomed works: The Days of the Turbins, Escape, and my novel The White Guard—one may find the other distinctive features of my art, for example: the persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as being the best element in our country, particularly the depiction of an intellectual family of the nobility, who by the haphazard fate of history is thrown into the Civil War, into the ranks of the White Guard, in keeping with the traditions of War and Peace...
...The Red Proletarian, No...
...I do admit that...
...Only three of these were laudatory...
...NOTEBOOK however, backing the Main Repertoire Committee, reported that The Crimson Island is a lampoon against the Revolution...
...If, however, I should not be assigned a directorship, then I ask to be a state-employed extra...
...My wish to rid myself of my suffering as a writer has now reached a full decision and this prompts me to submit this letter to the Soviet Government telling the whole truth as I see it...
...What is The Crimson Island actually...
...Pikel, Izvestia, 9/15/1929...
...Is it a "poor, uninspired play" or is it a "witty play...
...Liandres's article deals explicitly with Bulgakov, notably with Bulgakov's letter to the Soviet government, and in his article Liandres incorporates the letter or what is purported to be the original letter...
...And in 1929 this statement appeared: "His talent is as obvious as the politically reactionary character of his art...
...Bulgakov died in 1940 at the early age of 49, apparently the victim of a cancerous disease that resulted in partial blindness...
...Record of the meeting of the Agitation and Propaganda Department, May, 1927...
...Recently, however, another version of Bulgakov's letter appeared in the United States through "underground" channels—presumably the original version...
...A satirical play is not a lampoon and the Main Repertoire Committee is not the Revolution...
...I am an ardent champion of this kind of freedom and dare say that if any writer thought of proving he could do without it, he would be like a fish trying to demonstrate publicly that it can do without water...
...March 28, 1930...
...The appearance of this "underground" version is all the more significant in that, together with the Liandres version, it points to a parallel sequence of events involving Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita...
...After the official ban on all my works, many people who know me as a writer began suggesting that I write a "Communist play" (the quotation marks are not mine...
...Two versions of the novel have been published in the United States, in translation: the one, the "official" Soviet version, radically expurgated...
...To fight against censorship—no matter what it consists of and no matter in what government it exists—is my duty as a writer...
...297 were hostile and defamatory and were intended, as if in a mirror, to be a self-revelation of my life as a writer...
...I hasten to add that I do not cite these pas 1 The Days of the Turbins is the dramatized version of Bulgakov's novel The White Guard (1925...
...May I ask: What are the facts of the case...
...as a White Guard, that is to say, an enemy of the State and obviously as such can consider himself finished in the U.S.S.R...
...The portrait is true to life...
...I shall pledge to be a scrupulously honest director and actor, without the slightest intention of creating disharmony or disorder...
...It is very doubtful whether I could have appeared in a favorable light L. M. TIKOS translated Mikhail Bulgakov's letter...
...2 It is this Committee that breeds morons, panegyrists, and terrified, spineless characters...
...All my works have been reduced to nothing...
...The Bondage of Hypocrites—a play about Moliere's life, banned by censorship because of political allusions to contemporary Russia...
...I was referred to in print as a "literary scullion living off food-scraps spat upon by a dozen dinner guests...
...If, however, I cannot qualify as an extra, then I would take the job of scene-shifter...
...Life of Art, No...
...14, Oct...
...Bulgakov, according to the critics, remains what he has always been, "a neo-bourgeois abortion, whose mouth is foaming with a poisonous but impotent stream of saliva aimed at the working class and their Communist ideals...
...I do not intend to judge how witty my play is, but I admit that an evil spirit does appear in it—and it is the spirit of the Main Repertoire Committee...
...All the critics in the U.S.S.R., without exception, greeted this play with the declaration that it was "uninspired, toothless, poor," and also a "lampoon" against the Revolution...
...Only once, at the beginning of my career, was the following observation made, and 3 M. Y. Saltykov-Shchedrin (1826-1889)—wellknown satirist of the 19th century...
...There will be a light...
...Furthermore, I was advised to submit a letter of repentance to the Government of the U.S.S.R...
...And he offered encouragement to the ruined writer as follows: "I am talking about his previous plays...
...1926...
...1.I did not heed this advice...
...The aim...
...Despite this he managed to carry his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, to completion, thus, seeming to foreshadow and to realize in the world of actuality the blazing words of Paul in Robert Frost's Masque of Mercy: Contemplate glory...
...Then, in the September 1966 issue of the Soviet periodical Voprosy Literatury ("Questions of Literature") a literary historian, S. Liandres, published an article entitled "A Russian Writer Cannot Live in Exile...
...sages merely in order to complain against criticism or to start any polemics whatsoever...
...Averbakh, Izvestia, 9/20/1925...
...And thus on and on...
...2. Leafing through my press clippings, I note that during the 10 years of my literary activity there were 300 references to me in the Soviet press...
...My aim is much more serious...
...4. This concern about freedom is one of the distinctive features of my art and it seems to be quite sufficient to keep my work from staying alive in the U.S.S.R...
...Novitsky's review contains the truth...
...It is this Committee that is killing the creative spirit, undermining the Soviet theater, and is in fact doing a very thorough job of it...
...who does not even fall into the pink category of the fellow traveler...
...and, along with it, all the organizations that are given the assignment of controlling literary repertoire matters have unanimously and with unprecedented animosity asserted during the entire period of my literary activity that Bulgakov's works cannot exist in the U.S.S.R...
...Alexey Turbin, the hero of my play, The Days of the Turbins,l has been called in published verses a son-of-a-bitch, and the author of the play has been acclaimed as someone perpetually fascinated by "dog's dung...
...THROUGH MOST OF HIS CAREER, Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita, was under attack by Party critics...
...Not at all...
...During the last 10 years of his life, Bulgakov was Director of the Moscow Art Theater...
...the other, an "underground" version, presenting the novel apparently in its complete form...
...A. Turbin, that son-of-a-bitch...
...The Soviet press, 2 Main Repertoire Committee—Board of Censorship for the Soviet theater...
...It has also been reported that I am delighted with the atmosphere produced by the "dog-like fornications going on involving the wife of a friend" (Lunacharsky, Izvestia, 10/8/1926) and that my play The Days of the Turbins "stinks...
...On occasion he participated as an actor in some of its dramatic productions...
...I have in fact incorporated them in my play, which I am also directing...
...I have not expressed these thoughts merely privately...
...9. I herewith ask the Soviet Government, therefore, to order me to leave the domain of the Soviet Union within the shortest possible deadline...
...If all that I have written here is not convincing and I should be sentenced to lifelong silence in the U.S.S.R., then I ask the Soviet Government to give me employment in accord with my special field of interest and commission me to work in the theater as a state-employed director...
...Or this, "My boy, Misha Bulgakov, (if you will pardon the expression) is a writer who likes to nose around in the town-dump...
...To save myself from persecution, poverty, and inevitable ruin...
...Such a handling of the material is completely natural for a writer who is closely connected with the intelligentsia...
...Not only my previous works are doomed, but also those of the present and even those of the future...
...Contemplate Truth until it burns your eyes out...
...I address myself to the generosity of the Soviet Government and ask that I be magnanimously released to freedom, since I am a writer who can no longer be useful in his fatherland...
...A comparison of the two reveals that the Liandres version is so radically cut that it severely distorts the primary and ultimate purpose of Bulgakov's argument...
...In an unprecedented telephone call from Stalin, Bulgakov was given the verdict: no permission to leave, but a work-assignment in the Moscow Art Theater...
...is absolutely correct...
...3. Take, for example, my play The Crimson Island, to begin with...
...I ask, furthermore, that this be taken into account: I would just as soon be buried alive as to be forbidden to write...
...R. Pikel is mistaken...
...8. I am asking the Soviet Government to take into consideration the obvious fact that I am not a politician but a writer, and that I have given all that I've written to the Soviet theater...
...My ruin was greeted by Soviet public opinion with undisguised NOTEBOOK pleasure and characterized as an "achievement...
...it hides nothing...
...3 Needless to say, the press of the U.S.S.R...
...There is no parody against the Revolution in this play, and for several reasons, of which I shall mention only one for lack of space: because of the extraordinary magnificence of the Revolution, it is impossible to write a lampoon against it...
...It should have been put in the imperfect: Bulgakov became a satirist, and presumably at a time when any kind of genuine satire (penetrating the forbidden zones) was absolutely inconceivable in the U.S.S.R...
...even then with a trace of arrogant astonishment: `Bulgakov wants to become the satirist of our time" (New Books, No...
...Both of them are made by sworn enemies of my plays and are therefore revealing: In 1925 Izvestia carried this reference concerning me: "This is a writer 4 This is obviously a typographical error in the Russian version—the date most likely was March 18, ten days before Bulgakov wrote his letter...
...I myself, with my own hands, have cast into the fire the first draft of a novel dealing with the devil, the manuscript of a comedy, and the beginning of another novel entitled Theater...
...12 of the Repertoire Bulletin, 1928, published a review by P. Novitsky in which it was stated that The Crimson Island dealt with "the evil and dark parody" in which the "evil spirit of the Grand Inquisitor appears, suppresses artistic creativity and strongly advocates theatrical cliches which obliterate the personality of the actor and the writer...
...With documents in hand I am demonstrating that the entire press of the U.S.S.R...
...Bulgakov's letter to the Soviet government remained unpublished for more than 36 years...
...6, 1925) . But alas, the wrong tense was employed, to no avail...
...It was also said that "if such dark forces do exist, then the indignation and scathing wit of the famous bourgeois playwright are justified...
...And all the other distinguishing marks in my satirical works are offshoots of this primary one: the black and mystical colors (I am a mystical writer) which reflect the senseless abnormalities of our everyday life, the virulence with which my language is charged, the profound scepticism concerning the revolutionary process taking place at this moment in my backward country, and my favorite concern, the Great Evolution, with which I have contrasted it—but, most important, the portrayal of the terrible traits of my people, traits which, long before the Revolution, caused my teacher, Saltykov-Shchedrin the deepest suffering...
...10...
...Although no new works appeared during Bulgakov's final years, there seems to be clear evidence of a considerable collection of unpublished material, including some 19 plays...
...If even this should be out of the question, then I ask the Soviet Government to do with me as it sees fit, but to do something, anything with me, since at the present moment the only prospects for me, the writer of five plays, well-known here and abroad, are complete financial ruin, the street, and death...
...And I declare that the press of the U.S.S.R...
...In 1966, about 25 years after his death, the Soviet government readmitted him to the company of eminent Russian writers and published a selection of his earlier works, including a truncated version of The Master and Margarita...
...But the voice of experience, that is to say, the Main Repertoire Committee, indicates that Pikel's liberal position is not in accord with the "official" attitude, for on May 18, 1930,4 I received a message from the Main Repertoire Committee stating curtly that not my previous plays, but my present play, The Bondage of Hypocrites (Moliere), 5 was not approved for stage presentation...
...Am I conceivable in the U.S.S.R...
...But such a treatment of the problem leads to only one consequence as far as this writer is concerned (and his heroes, too) : despite all his efforts to stay objective on the question of White and Red, he is in the final analysis condemned in the U.S.S.R...
...To put it briefly: under two lines written on a scrap of official paper, there it lies buried: my research in the great libraries, the product of my creative imagination, a play that has received repeated and unqualified praise from qualified drama critics as being a brilliant piece of work...
...We need these Turbins like a dog needs a bra...
...The unanimity was complete, but then suddenly and unexpectedly it was broken: Issue No...
...L...
...and appeals for freedom of the press are my concern...
...look at that mug there, brother, .. . You know, I'm a man of delicate disposition, but I could take and smack you right between the eyes...
...This review pointed out, moreover, that The Crimson Island dealt with "the evil and dark forces that breed morons, subservient characters and panegyrists...
...I am not asking that consideration be given to the following two references made to me in the Soviet press...
...NOTEBOOK in the eyes of the Soviet Government, had I written such a hypocritical letter, which could only have been a superficial one, and indeed a naive political trick...
...R. Pikel, in referring to my demise (Izvestia, 10/15/1929), expressed his attitude with great generosity: "We do not mean to say by this that Bulgakov's name is crossed off from the list of Soviet playwrights...
...7. Now I am finished...
...I would be ready and willing to direct conscientiously any play—whether Shakespeare or a contemporary play...
...It is at the same time a political portrait...
...Who needs him...
...1, 1929), then it is writing the truth...
...I do not claim the honor of formulating such a criminal thought in the pages of the Soviet press...
...This is nothing but stupid nonsense...
...By 1930 his plays were barred from the Soviet stage, and ultimately a general ban was placed upon all his publications, exposing the young writer to what he termed the stark prospects of "financial ruin, the street, and death...
...6. My literary portrait is now finished...
...Nor did I try to write a Communist play—since I was sure from the beginning that I would not be able to write such a play with any degree of success...
...I ask to be directed explicitly, for no organization and no individuals have responded to my petitions...
...renouncing the views expressed in my previous literary works, and giving assurance that henceforth I intended to work as a fellow traveler dedicated to the ideas of Communism...
...It was done with unmistakable clarity in V. Blume's article (Literary Gazette), the meaning of which can be summed up brilliantly and precisely in one terse statement: It is the aim of every satirist in the Soviet Union to destroy the Soviet regime...
...did not even consider it important enough to take notice of all this since it has been so preoccupied with the hardly convincing reports about the so-called slander in Bulgakov's satires...
...In such a state of mind Bulgakov wrote a letter to the Soviet government, requesting permission to leave Russia, or, as an alternative, to work in the theater...
Vol. 16 • May 1969 • No. 3
