BULGAKOV, Mikhail.

£3,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Adam i Eva. Piesa v 4 aktakh. A scarce samizdat of the classic dystopian play, preserving the original text without the edits imposed by Soviet censorship. This remained the only edition in Russian of Bulgakov's unexpurgated text for over 20 years.Bulgakov (1891-1940) wrote the play in 1931, but it was never published or staged in his lifetime. The first published edition was by the YMCA-Press, in Paris, in 1971, but this includes the mistakes and censorship edits added in the intervening 40 years. Bulgakov's niece kept a copy of his original transcript - perhaps the source for this printing.The play depicts an apocalyptic war fought with chemical weapons. Much of the censorship focused on Bulgakov's implication that human life is worth more than any one ideology. The original version was first printed in Russia in 1992.

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