PSYCHODRAMA. Bulgakov. Stalin. Society

The Great stage of the Molody Theater has seen a premiere. The new play, Love Letters to Stalin by Juan Mayorga, Spain (production and video design by Stanislav Moiseiev, People’s Artist of Ukraine) is based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s letters to Joseph Stalin. The play is actually nurtured by the perpetual theme of the complicated and mixed relations between the artist and power. However, if for the theaters and audiences of the other 15 countries where the play has been staged this problem is rather seen as perpetual and philosophical, for Ukraine it is quite definite and historical. And this is not only due to Bulgakov being one of the world’s best-known Kyivites. First and foremost this is the result of Ukraine having a critical burden of unsurmounted totalitarian past.

The psychodrama which Bulgakov experienced as he was writing letters to Stalin, the image of “the leader,” and the image of Bulgakov’s wife, all of this to different extents portrays the totalitarian epoch, whose effects have proved more than just insurmountable for Ukraine. Ukraine has not been able to comprehend them yet. This is where a great danger lurks for us. In particular, the danger of lagging behind not only the Baltic countries and Poland, but, paradoxically enough, Russia as well. While our channels show low-standard foreign product, beyond the limits of good and evil, Russian TV, supported by state (in particular, the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications), shows series based on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The First Circle) and Vasily Aksionov (The Moscow Saga). Yet even these apparently anti-totalitarian films have a special super-mission, which Ukraine is not prepared to confront. But what can we talk about if, after 18 months of working, the Humanitarian Council was not even able to develop the humanitarian concept? They only made big headlines, all to no avail.

Meanwhile, this concept could be based on the overcoming of the effects of totalitarianism, or the “Sandarmokh List,” suggested by The Day, which we named the symbol of 2012 just yesterday.

By the way, there is another reason reminding us of the eternal problem of relations between the artist and power. January 15 is Jean-Baptiste Moliere’s 390th birthday anniversary. The great French comedy playwright also featured in one of Bulgakov’s plays, The Servitude of Hypocrites. Again, the story unfolds around the eternal conflict between the artist and power. When this play was banned from the repertoire of the Moscow Art Academic Theater (MKhAT) in 1939, Bulgakov lost his last innermost barriers, and wrote the play Batum – in fact, an ode to Stalin. It, too, was banned by Stalin himself.

The Day asked Stanislav MOISEIEV, author of the production and video design of Love Letters to Stalin, art director of the Molody Theater, to explain the meaning of overcoming of Ukraine’s totalitarian past and share about the ideas that prompted the production of the play.

This play is now staged in 15 countries, but obviously in Ukraine it has a special context, not only because Bulgakov is one of the world’s best-known Kyivites, but also due to the unsurmounted effects of the totalitarian epoch. What ideas did you have while you were working on the play?

“The general context which you have just mentioned is mostly clear to those who think about it. As a matter of fact, there are not so many individuals worrying about the problems of the effects of our totalitarian past. Curiously enough, we got this offer personally from the author of the play, Juan Mayorga. Besides the commonplace and, if I may put it like this, conventional things related to totalitarianism and the ‘artist and power’ problem, there is another interesting aspect to it. Mayorga says (at least, this is how I interpret him) that it is not necessary to kill an artist or exile him to the Kolyma camps in order to destroy him. It is just enough to make him dependent. In the play, Stalin turns Bulgakov into a dependent man, an addict of sorts: he stops writing novels and plays and starts to write endless letters to Stalin. Thus the tyrant deprives Bulgakov of the possibility to create. I think that power, especially a totalitarian regime, has plenty of ways to destroy and crash men of free spirit, who will speak the truth.”

You say that the effects of the totalitarian epoch are conventional to a certain extent. Maybe, they are conventional for thinkers, but not for the vast majority of Ukrainians.

“Certainly. And this is the huge problem of our social life. I am convinced that there will not be very many people, interested in this play. Of course it will have its audience. Obviously, this play is meant for the people who are used to critical thinking, who are interested in the problems of civic society, relations between power and artists. It is impossible to comprehend such works without having a certain background.”

A curious coincidence: on one of these days we are going to mark Moliere’s 390th birthday anniversary. Bulgakov resorted to this character in his Servitude of Hypocrites, which also deals with the conflict between the artist and power. This problem must have somewhat transformed over the four centuries. In what way do you think?

“Apparently all social orders and forms of totalitarian state are adapting and modifying, but it does not change the core of the problem or its scale. The only difference is the form, from feudal France ruled by absolutism, to Stalin with his totalitarian order, to our contemporary forms, where physical extermination is not really necessary: you can merely be deprived of the possibility to speak the truth. This is the problem of an unfree society which does not live by the law, but instead pins its hopes for a paternal figurehead.”

Curiously enough, you are extensively using new technology in your production. How does the language of state-of-the-art technology allow to explain the totalitarian epoch?

“For me, in present-day theater there are absolutely no temporal signs. The play appeals to semantic nature. It is not a historical play, and its mission is not to reproduce the reality of a certain epoch, but rather speak of the signs. There is the sign of Bulgakov, of his wife Elena, and the sign of Stalin. Their relations, and the intricate complexity of these relations, is what is most interesting. I think it is quite natural to use video projection. Besides, there are different ways to use it. Sometimes it is just a layer directly related to the epoch (the characters’ portraits, or the contemporary theater bills), and next there are Google maps of Paris, London, or Rome.”

In this year’s first issue of The Day we declared 2012 the Year of the “Sandarmokh List.” This, too, is a sign. What do you think overcoming its totalitarian past must mean for Ukraine?

“It’s a complicated question. I think this process is very important for individual citizens (squeezing the slave out of yourself, drop by drop, as Chekhov put it). This process should go on in every individual’s inner world. Of course, all civic and social institutions and schools must be involved. Maybe, some are prepared to follow this path on their own, imbibing correct, quality information (for instance, reading Den/The Day). Others are not up to it, they need a push, they need someone to open their eyes, to unblindfold them. It is critical that state should support this process. Then we will become a free and truly democratic nation.”