Bela Garda

BELA GARDA - Bulgakov / Babel - Dorcol National Theater

Joseph Stalin watched the play 'Bela Garda' 20 times, then it was shown under the altered title 'Days of the Turbins'. Mikhail Bulgakov had to revise the play and title about the surrounded Kiev several times at the request of the censors. December 1918. Kiev is squeezed between the White Guards and the Red Army, then between the forerunners of the Nazis and the unfortunate dream of penetrating East. Investing new capital to have the Slavs fight among themselves - an old military exercise. Gunfire on the street, brothers, disillusioned officers, war creeping into the bed. Betrayed wife. A ship escaping from vermin. Treachery and perfidies. At a time when Krleza admires Gavrilo Princip. The razor-sharp sentences of Isaac Babel, he asks if the dead Slavs are the fertilizer of history without which this continent would be an empty pot for European banquets. Hungry poets wonder while the pale steel gleams in the blood of the autumn sun. And the pleasure of dreamy hatred, bitter contempt for the dogs and swine of humanity. The orange sun slides through the sky like a severed head. The cavalry of death terrifies the exhausted mares.