Experimental Blog #87

Comments on 3 plays: "Bliss", "Ivan Vasilyevich", and "Alexander Pushkin" by Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov

The plays "Bliss" and "Ivan Vasilyevich" are both science fiction satirical comedies based on the invention of a "time machine" by an eccentric scientist-engineer. In fact, although the inventor is not the same person, other characters in both plays are the same people; and they even say the same, or almost the same lines in the opening scenes of the two plays. The play "Bliss" goes forward in time about 300 years into the 23rd century, while "Ivan Vasilyevich" goes back about 350 years to the 16th century, that is, to the time of the well remembered Tsar "Ivan the Terrible".

Both plays were contracted and read at a theater in Moscow. It seems, however, that Mikhail Bulgakov had his usual problems with the soviet censors and critics, and they could not find acceptable compromises to his politically satirical, and often comical and intertaining hints and remarks. Even Joseph Stalin, who almost certainly must have read all of Bulgakov's plays whether they were published or not, gave his views on the positive reevaluation of Tsar "Ivan the Terrible", that is Ivan Vasilyevich.

A form of the play "Ivan Vasilyevich" seems to have been published in 1940, and again in 1965. "Bliss" seems to have been published in the magazine "Star of the East" in 1966 in Tashkent.

The play "Alexander Pushkin" is considered to be a serious play, and it has little or no noticable humor or satire. In the beginning, around 1934, it was a joint effort with a well known writer and historian of literature, V V Veresaev. However, they could not agree on various points: for instance, on the character and reputation of "Dantes". By the time that the play was finally approved in 1939, Mikhail Bulgakov was the only author.

"Dantes", who never seems to be mentioned by any other names, besides being the man who shot and killed Alexander Pushkin in their duel, also turns out to be Pushkin's brother in law.
Eventually the play "Alexander Pushkin" was deemed to be "ideologically acceptable" from the Soviet point of view. It premiered in 1943, and was performed for 16 years, apparently continuously, and perhaps in various theaters.