The Escape (Bulgakov)

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Mikhail Bulgakov around 1935

Escape ( Russian Бег Beg ) is a play in four acts by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov , which was completed in 1927 and premiered on March 29, 1957 in Stalingrad . The book edition came out in 1962.

overview

Russian civil war from October 1920 to autumn 1921 in Northern Tauria and the Crimea as well as emigration to Constantinople and Paris :

Budjonny pushes the whites towards the Black Sea . General Chludow, in command of the front, and his understaffed White Army are supposed to withstand the pressure of the cavalry general. Fatal - the Sywasch freezes over and the Reds walk across the lake to the Crimea. General Chludow has no mercy. He has opponents - for example the orderly of the General of the White Tscharnota - hang on the lamppost of the nearest train station . Chludow then loses his nerve in the face of defeat and yells hatred in the face of the commander-in-chief.

On the month-long flight from the Bolsheviks , the young Petersburg lecturer Sergei Golubkow met and fell in love with the married Petersburg native Serafima Korsuchina. The academic wants to take the typhus- sick lady on the way to her husband, the Minister of Commerce Paramon Korsuchin. When Golubkow met Korsuchin in the Crimea, the minister denied his wife and ran away.

Chludow has Serafima arrested as a communist spy. Golubkow undaunted penetrates to Chludow and demands the release of the sick lover. With the best will in the world, the general cannot give the inmate back to the private lecturer, because General Tscharnota freed her from the dungeon of the White Counterintelligence in one stroke.

Stranded in Constantinople, General Chludow, General Tscharnota, his wife Luska and the lovers soon gnaw on the hunger cloth. Luska reproaches her husband for saving Serafima. General Tscharnota, not lazy, accuses his wife of dealing with a Frenchman. Golubkow earned in Constantinople Opel his living as organ grinder and Serafima goes to the bar. General Tscharnota sells his trousers and appears in underpants - that is, as a civilian.

Korsuchin lives big in Paris. Golubkov arrives with General Tscharnota. The lecturer asks for money for Serafima. Once again, Korsuchin denies his wife. By the way, Korsuchin revealed that he would soon marry Luska, who followed him to France. Good thing - says Golubkow, then I can marry my beloved Serafima. Tscharnota, in underpants on the Seine , knows what to do. At a game of cards he uses a Chludow medallion and takes twenty thousand dollars from Korsuchin. Tscharnota can finally buy a decent suit.

After returning to Constantinople, Tscharnota wants to share the money with Chludow, Golubkow and Serafima. The pair of lovers refused and tried to enter Russia. Chludov considers the couple's return to be promising, because neither would have harmed the Bolsheviks. Tscharnota cannot understand why Chludow would also like to return to his Russian homeland. That executioner would be placed against the first wall there and shot. Chludow - unteachable - is fed up with the Turkish climate and wants to travel home to the beloved Russian snowy winter.

Subtitle and motto

With the subtitle Eight Dreams , Bulgakov wanted to refer to the presentation of dream sequences instead of historical truths. Despite this relativization, Stalin had the play banned. The loser of the civil war, the White Guard generals, had made a pitiful impression on the dictator.

Schröder pointed out the ambiguity of the title. The motto - a three-line from Schukowski

Immortality, you quiet, light bank,
Our striving is entirely for you alone.
So rest, who ends his life ...

contains the title word бег (beg) in the real sense of run , so here the run of life and refers to the fate of General Chludow.

background

Figure in the piece Role models)
Lieutenant General Roman Chludow Lieutenant General Jakow Alexandrowitsch Slashchev (1885–1929)
Major General Grigory Tscharnota Lieutenant General Bronislaw Lyudwigowitsch Tschernota-de-Bojary-Boyarski (1853–1923)
and Sergei Georgievich Ulagai
Luska Nina Netsholodova
Commander in Chief of the Whites Baron Pyotr Wrangel

Adaptations

Movie

Musical theater

  • 1972, Soviet Union, Ukraine: The Escape - opera by Valentin Savvich Bibik (opus 12).

German-language editions

Output used:

  • The escape. Eight dreams. Piece in four acts. Translated from the Russian by Ingrid Göhringer . Pp. 79–147 in: Michail Bulgakow. Pieces. With an afterword by Ralf Schröder Verlag Culture and Progress, Berlin 1970 (1st edition, 432 pages)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Stalin quote from February 2, 1929
  2. ↑ Edition used, p. 79
  3. ↑ Schröder in the afterword of the edition used, p. 420, 20. Zvu
  4. ↑ Russian ru: Слащёв, Яков Александрович
  5. ↑ Russian ru: Чернота-де-Бояры-Боярский, Бронислав Людвигович
  6. ↑ Russian ru: Улагай, Сергей Георгиевич
  7. ↑ Russian ru: Нечволодова, Нина Николаевна
  8. ↑ Russian. The escape