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[BANNED BULGAKOV IN THE HEART OF SOVIET ASIA] Zvezda Vostoka : Organ Soiuza Pisatelei Vostoka [i.e. Star of the East: Organ of the Eastern Writers Union] #3, 1967

Item #2064

Tashkent, 1967. 240 pp.: ill. 26x17 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Tear of spine, some pale stains on covers, otherwise very good.

A rare issue of the oldest magazine in Central Asia drawing our attention to the abundance of writers who faced censorship difficulties at that time: Bulgakov, Mandelstam, Platonov, Babel, et al. It was considered the charity edition tied with 1966 Tashkent earthquake and its aftermath. The issue itself became a myth gathering gossip about its content and circumstances of publishing. “When it has appeared in Moscow, it seemed like a bombshell… It was full of banned materials. Firstly, there were fragments from Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘Notes on the Cuffs’” [p.11-19] which his widow sent to the magazine. In the USSR, this autobiographical work was partly published during his lifetime only once – in the Leningrad almanac “Vozrozhdenie” (Revival, 1923) – and appeared again in this magazine. For now, only a third of the original text is preserved by pieces, but the work confirms: Bulgakov strived to emigrate in 1921.
Apart from it, the issue gave the chance to Babel’s novel “Kolyvushka” and Platonov’s play “Father’s Voice”. It included the poems by repressed Mandelstam and unfavorable Voznesensky, the diary and drawings by the avant-garde artist Kliment Red’ko who was excluded from the Union of Artists. Two works dedicated to the Georgian poet Tabidze and the Jewish theatrical director Mikhoels, repressed in the Stalinist period. The poems of contemporary authors like Okudzhava, Akhmadulina, Evtushenko tried to dilute the dangerous collection.
“Writers of Russia – to the Victims of Tashkent Earthquake” was the best slogan for the international nature of providing help. But what it was: did the Soviet writers lend a hand to Tashkent or did Tashkent magazine help the Soviet writers? All copies of the issue were instantly sold out, and the magazine's editor was removed from his position.

Worldcat shows copies located in LoC, Princeton, California, Chicago, Michigan, Kentucky, Cornell Universities.

Price: $950.00