1930

16th January 1930

To Nikolai Bulgakov

[…] Now about me: all my works of literature and all my plans have crumbled to nothing. I have been condemned to silence and, very probably, to total starvation. In the second half of 1929, under impossibly harsh conditions, I wrote a play about Molière.* The leading experts in Moscow considered it the best of my five plays. But everything seems to indicate that they won’t allow it to be staged. My torments concerning it have been going on for some six weeks now, despite the fact that we’re talking about Molière and the seventeenth century, and despite the fact that it doesn’t touch on contemporary life.

If this play fails, I shall have no means of salvation – as it is, my situation is catastrophic. I have no help, no defence. I’m telling you in all sobriety: my ship is sinking, and the water’s already up to the bridge. I must drown courageously. Please take careful account of what I’m saying.

If it is at all possible for you to send on my fee (bank? cheque? whatever’s best), please do so: I don’t possess a single copeck. I hope of course that, to avoid any unpleasantness, this will be an official transaction.

21st February

To Nikolai Bulgakov

Dear Kolya,

You ask whether I might be interested in your work. Yes, extremely interested! […] I am pleased and proud that, in the most difficult conditions, you have begun to make your way in life. I remember you as a young man, have always loved you and am now firmly convinced that you will become a scientist. […]

Many of my acquaintances have asked me about our family, and I have always been consoled by the fact that I am able to speak about your talents.

But there’s one thought that weighs on me: we will evidently never see each other again in our lifetime. My fate has been chaotic and terrible. Now I am being reduced to silence; for a writer, this is equivalent to death.

I have a question for you in turn: are you interested in my work as a writer? Please write and tell me. If it does interest you in any way at all, please pay, if at all possible, particular heed to what I’m about to say – although careful reading of your letters, combined with instinct and experience, tells me that your interest and attention are already engaged.

I have tried to carry out my task as a writer as I should, under impossibly harsh conditions. Now my work has come to an end. I see myself (or so I suppose) as a complex machine whose products are no longer needed in the USSR. My Molière play has proved this to me all too clearly. And it is still doing so.

At night I wrack my brains in torment trying to think up some means of salvation. But I can’t see anything. Who else is there, I wonder, whom I can petition?…

Now about something more immediate: please be kind – put up with me worrying you a little longer (I won’t need, I should imagine, to impose on you for much more). From the sum of money that Vladimir Lvovich* gave you from my fee, please send me some more, again through the bank. I need any amount, however insignificant. I don’t know how much he gave you. Don’t send me the whole lot, but I just badly need money for tea, coffee, socks and stockings for my wife. If it’s not too much trouble, please would you send me a parcel with tea, coffee, two pairs of socks and two pairs of lady’s stockings (size 9) (on no account anything silk). I don’t know what this will cost. Preferably as follows: a parcel in the first instance, and if there is any money left over, then ten dollars to me through the bank and keep the rest for yourself for expenses. If my calculations are wrong, then just send the parcel.

If Vanya* is short of money send me the parcel and then some of the money to him.

Please work out for yourself what’s best!

On 15th March the first payment to the finance office will fall due (income tax for last year). I reckon that, unless there’s some sort of miracle, there won’t be a single item left in my small, totally damp apartment (incidentally, I have suffered many years from rheumatism). I won’t mind so much about the junk. And as for the chairs and the cups, well, to hell with them! But it’s the books I’m worried about! I’ve not got a very good library, but nonetheless life for me without books would be tantamount to death! When I work, I work very seriously – there’s so much I need to read.

Nothing I’ve written starting with the words “On 15th March” is anything to do with business, and none of it means that I’m complaining or asking for help here – I simply say these things for my own amusement.

You will have to become reconciled to the thought that I’ll be writing more frequently (but probably, as I say, not for long). I have not, it’s true, mastered the art of letter-writing: however much you thrash about, the words don’t flow off the page, and I’m never able to express my thoughts correctly.

I shall look forward very much to hearing from you. Take heart, stay cheerful, and don’t forget about your brother Mikhail. If you can find the time, think about Mikhail Bulgakov…

2nd April

To OGPU

I would be grateful if you would ensure that my letter of 28.3.1930, enclosed with this letter, is sent on to the government of the USSR for their consideration.

M. Bulgakov

28th March

To the Government of the USSR

From Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov

(Moscow, Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street 35a, Apartment 6)

I wish to address the government of the USSR as follows:

1.

Now that all my works have been banned I have heard from many people who know me as a writer, all offering the same advice:

I should write a “communist play” (my inverted commas) and then write to the government of the USSR with a penitential letter in which I renounce my previously held views expressed in my literary works, together with an assurance that henceforth I will write as a fellow traveller devoted to the idea of communism.

The aim: to save myself from persecution, poverty and inevitable final ruin.

I have not followed this advice. I would scarcely be presenting myself to the government of the USSR in a favourable light, were I to write a mendacious letter which was nothing more than an unsavoury and, what’s more, a naive political about-face. And I have not even made any attempt to write a communist play, fully aware that I would never be able to do such a thing.

My strong desire to put an end to my literary torments forces me to write this honest letter to the government of the USSR.

2.

On looking through my collection of newspaper cuttings I have discovered that, during the ten years of my career as a writer, there have been 301 reviews of my work in the Soviet press. Three of these reviews were complimentary, and 298 hostile and abusive.

These 298 reviews represent the mirror image of my literary career.

In one review, in verse, the hero of my play The Days of the Turbins, Alexei Turbin, was called a “SON OF A BITCH”, while the play’s author was characterized as being “AS SENILE AS AN OLD DOG”. I have been referred to as a “literary VULTURE”, picking over the remains of the vomit “PUKED UP by a dozen guests”.

And again:

“…MISHKA Bulgakov, my mate. WHAT AN EXPERT WRITER HE IS, IF YOU’LL FORGIVE THE EXPRESSION, PICKING HIS WAY THROUGH STALE RUBBISH… Why, do I ask, do you have such an UGLY MUG, mate… I am a man of delicate sensibilities, just take a basin and CRACK IT OVER HIS SKULL… The man in the street no more needs the Turbins than a DOG NEEDS A BRA… We’ve got a fine one here, THIS TURBIN, THE SON OF A BITCH, NO SALES OR SUCCESS FOR HIM, LET’S HOPE…” (The Life of Art, No. 4, 1927).

They have written of a “Bulgakov who will never change, a NEO-BOURGEOIS PIECE OF FILTH, spitting his poisonous but feeble saliva onto the working class and its communist ideals” (Komsomolskaya Pravda, 14/10, 1926).

They have written that I like the “ATMOSPHERE OF A DOG’S WEDDING around some auburn-haired wife of a friend” (A. Lunacharsky, Izvestiya, 8/10, 1926), and that a “STENCH” emanates from my play The Days of the Turbins (Shorthand report of an Agitprop meeting in May, 1927), and so on, and so on…

I am quoting all this, I hasten to add, by no means in order to complain about such criticism or to enter into any kind of polemical discussion. I have something far more serious in mind.

From the documents in my possession, I can demonstrate that, throughout the ten years of my career as a writer, the entire USSR press, together with all those institutions which have been entrusted with the role of overseeing the repertoire, have unanimously and with EXTRAORDINARY FURY demonstrated that the works of Mikhail Bulgakov cannot exist in the USSR.

And I hereby declare that the USSR press is TOTALLY CORRECT.

3.

Let my play The Crimson Island serve as the starting point of my letter.

Without exception, every review in the Soviet press has maintained that this was a “third-rate, toothless and squalid” play, and that it was a “malicious slander on the revolution”.

On this point there was total unanimity, until it was suddenly broken, in the most astonishing fashion.

In the Repertory Bulletin (No 12, 1928) there was a review by a P. Novitsky which said that The Crimson Island was an “interesting and witty parody” featuring the “ominous figure of the Grand Inquisitor suppressing artistic creativity and cultivating ABSURDLY SERVILE AND FAWNING DRAMATIC STEREOTYPES, thereby eradicating the personality of both actor and writer” – and that, in The Crimson Island, there is a reference to a “dark and evil force that nurtures HELOTS, TOADIES AND SYCOPHANTS”.

The review went on to say that “if such a dark force exists, then the INDIGNATION AND MALICIOUS WIT OF THE DRAMATIST, SO ACCLAIMED BY THE BOURGEOISIE, HAS BEEN JUSTIFIED”.

Where is the truth, might I ask?

What then, in the final analysis, is The Crimson Island? “A squalid third-rate play” or “a witty lampoon”?

The truth is to be found in Novitsky’s review. I won’t attempt to judge whether my play is witty, but I admit that it indeed possesses an ominous shadow, and that that shadow is cast by the Main Repertory Committee. It is precisely this committee which nurtures helots, sycophants and frightened lackeys, and it is precisely this committee which is killing creative thought. It is destroying Soviet drama and won’t stop until this is achieved.

I have not expressed such thoughts in a whisper or in a corner. They can be found in a dramatized lampoon that I have put on the stage. On behalf of the Repertory Committee, the Soviet press called The Crimson Island a vicious slander on the revolution. This is just nonsensical babble. There are many reasons why the play is not a vicious slander on the revolution, but, for lack of space, I’ll point out only one: the hugely momentous scale of the revolution means that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to write a vicious slander on it. The lampoon is not a slander, and the Repcommittee is not a revolution.

But when the German press writes that The Crimson Island is “the first summons for the freedom of the press in the USSR” (The Young Guard, No. 1, 1929), it is speaking the truth. I admit this. It is my duty as a writer to fight against censorship, whatever form it may take, and whatever authority it may represent, just as it is to call for freedom of the press. I am a fervent believer in such a freedom and I maintain that if any writer were to think of showing that he didn’t need it, then he would be like a fish declaring publicly that it doesn’t need water.

4.

There you have one of the characteristics of my creative endeavour, and it alone is quite sufficient for my works not to exist in the USSR. But all the other characteristics present in my satirical stories are connected with this one: the black and mystical colours (I am a MYSTICAL WRITER) with which I depict the innumerable unsavoury aspects of our everyday life; the poison that permeates my language; the feelings of profound scepticism for the revolutionary process that is taking place in this backward country of mine, in contrast to my beloved concept of the Great Evolution; and, most importantly of all, the portrayal of the terrible features that characterize my people, features which gave rise long before the revolution to the deepest sufferings of my master Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin.*

It goes without saying that the Soviet press has never seriously thought about taking any of this into account, occupied as it is with making unconvincing statements to the effect that M. Bulgakov’s satire is “SLANDEROUS”.

Only on one occasion, just as I was beginning to make a name for myself, did a comment appear with just a suggestion of high-minded astonishment:

“M. Bulgakov WISHES to become the satirist of our age” (The Bookseller, No. 6, 1925).

The verb “to wish”, alas, has been used incorrectly, in the present tense. It should be used in the pluperfect tense: M. Bulgakov HAD BECOME A SATIRIST, precisely at a time when any idea of genuine satire (reaching into forbidden areas) was absolutely inconceivable in the USSR.

The honour of expressing this criminal idea in the press has not fallen to me. It has been expressed with complete and utter clarity in the article by V. Blyum* (Lit. Gaz. No. 6), and the idea of this article has been brilliantly and precisely summarized in the single phrase:

EVERY SATIRIST IN THE USSR INFRINGES UPON SOVIET SOCIETY.

Am I thinkable in the USSR?

5.

And finally, here are my other characteristics as reflected in my ruined plays The Days of the Turbins and Escape, and in my novel The White Guard: the persistent portrayal of the Russian intelligentsia as the finest stratum in our country. In particular, the portrayal of an aristocratic family of the intelligentsia, who through the will of immutable historical fate finds itself thrown into the ranks of the White Guard during the civil war, in the tradition of War and Peace. Such a theme is entirely natural for a writer who himself is intimately part of the intelligentsia.

Yet despite the author’s best efforts to LOOK DOWN DISPASSIONATELY ON REDS AND WHITES ALIKE, such portrayals result in him, together with his characters, being dubbed in the USSR an enemy White-Guardist, and once he has been called that, as everyone will understand, he can no longer consider his existence viable in the USSR.

6.

My literary self-portrait is complete. At the same time it is a political portrait. I am unable to say just what depths of criminality might be found in it, but I would like to make one request: please don’t look for anything else beyond what it says. It has been done in the most conscientious way.

7.

Now I have been annihilated.

Such an annihilation has been greeted by Soviet society with rapture and referred to as an “ACHIEVEMENT”.

Noting my annihilation, R. Pikel* has expressed the following liberal thought (Izvestiya, 15/9/1929):

“We do not mean by this that the name of Bulgakov has been deleted from the list of Soviet dramatists.”

And he has reassured the condemned writer with the following words: “We are talking here about his previous dramatic works.”

Reality, however, in the form of the Repertory Committee, has shown that R. Pikel’s liberalism has no foundation.

On 18th March 1930 I received a document from the Repcommittee laconically stating that it has FORBIDDEN THE PRODUCTION of a new, not an earlier play of mine, The Cabal of Hypocrites (Molière).

I shall simply say this: all my work in the archives, my fantasy, a play which has evoked innumerable testimonials from qualified theatre specialists, a dazzling play – all this has been buried under two lines of an official document.

R. Pikel is mistaken: it is not just my past works that are dead, but my present and all my future ones as well. With my own hands I have personally thrown the draft of a novel about the Devil,* the draft of a comic work and the opening of a second novel, The Theatre,* into the stove.

All these things are hopeless.

8.

I ask the Soviet government to take into account the fact that I am not a politician, but a writer, and that everything I have written has been for the Soviet stage.

I ask the government to direct its attention to the following two reviews about me in the Soviet press.

They both come from people who are implacably hostile to my works, and are therefore very valuable.

The first was from 1925:

“A writer has appeared who HAS NOT EVEN DISGUISED HIMSELF IN THE COLOURS OF A FELLOW TRAVELLER” (L. Averbakh,* Izvestiya, 20/9/1925).

And then in 1929:

“His talent is as evident as the socially reactionary nature of his work” (R. Pikel, Izvestiya, 15/9/1929).

I would ask it to note that, for me, the impossibility of writing is equivalent to being buried alive.

9.

I REQUEST THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF THE USSR AS A MATTER OF URGENCY ORDER ME TO LEAVE THE BORDERS OF THE USSR, ACCOMPANIED BY MY WIFE LYUBOV YEVGENYEVNA BULGAKOVA.

10.

I appeal to the humanity of the Soviet authorities to ask that you magnanimously set me free, as a writer who cannot be of use in his own homeland.

11.

If what I have written has not been sufficiently persuasive and if I should be condemned to a lifetime of silence in the USSR, then I ask the Soviet government to give me specialized work in the theatre and assign me to a permanent post as a director.

I am emphatically and specifically requesting a CATEGORICAL ORDER, AN OFFICIAL ASSIGNMENT, precisely because all my efforts to find work in the only area in which I, as an exceptionally qualified expert, might be of use to the USSR, have resulted in utter failure. My name has become so odious that any proposals on my part for work are met with a sense of CONSTERNATION, despite the fact that my specialist knowledge of the stage is so well known by the vast majority of actors, theatre managers and theatre directors in Moscow.

I am offering myself to the USSR as a completely honest and totally trustworthy specialist theatre director and actor, who will conscientiously undertake the production of any play, from the plays of Shakespeare right up to the present day.

I ask that I be appointed as an assistant director with MAT 1 – the very best theatre school, headed by K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko.

If I can’t be appointed as a director, then I would ask for a permanent position as an extra. And if that is not possible, then as a backstage workman.

And if even that is not possible, then I ask the Soviet government to decide what I should do as it thinks necessary, but to decide in one way or another because, AT THIS PRESENT MOMENT, I, a dramatist, the author of five plays, having made a name for himself both in the USSR and abroad, am faced with destitution, homelessness and death.