ABSTRACT
It is hardly surprising to find these words in a play by Bulgakov, for such an idea is reflected throughout his works. What is surprising is where they occur: in the mouth of the young Stalin, in Bulgakov’s final play Batum. Bulgakov’s relationship with Stalin still remains something of a puzzle. What exactly was his attitude to the dictator, on the one hand, and why did Stalin apparently protect him, from arrest and even death, on the other? True, Ermolinsky believed that only Bulgakov’s own death saved him from the camps, but even if this is so he still managed to survive the 1930s when other writers did not. He was never anything but frank in his views. As his sister-in-law said in 1934, at a time when he had applied for a passport: “Why should they give Maka a passport? They give them to writers who they know will write a book the Soviet Union needs. But has Maka in any way shown that he’s changed his views since Stalin’s telephone call?” (Bulgakova, 56).2 When, at the end of 1933, Bulgakov was told that someone had phoned from the Literaturnaya entsiklopedia wanting to know, for a hostile article on him, whether he had “reformed” (perestroilsya), his attitude was openly hostile (Bulgakova, 48).
