The Flight

The Flight is a play by Mikhail Bulgakov depicting Russian émigrés fleeing the Civil War and struggling to adapt to exile. Its linked episodes move between wartime Russia and Constantinople.

Russian Civil War: A conflict fought from 1917 to 1923 between Bolshevik forces and diverse opponents across the former Russian Empire. The play’s fleeing characters are driven from Russia by this conflict.
Moscow Art Theatre: A Moscow theatre founded in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. The Flight was written for the theatre, which initially rejected it.
Sergei Khludov: A fictional White Army general in The Flight, haunted by his wartime actions and pursued by psychological torment. His guilt gives the military retreat a personal and psychological cost.
Soviet socialist realism: A state-endorsed artistic doctrine requiring works to portray socialist society in an accessible, ideologically affirmative manner. The play’s sympathy for defeated anti-Bolsheviks conflicted with emerging Soviet expectations.
Russian White movement: A loose coalition of anti-Bolshevik forces that fought the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. White military defeat shapes the characters’ retreat and dispersal.
Konstantin Stanislavski: A Russian theatre practitioner whose system of actor training shaped modern realist performance. He supported Bulgakov’s play and sought its production at the Moscow Art Theatre.
Raisa Charnota: A fictional Russian émigrée in The Flight who seeks survival and a future outside her homeland. Her choices show exile as practical struggle as well as loss.
The Great Purge: A campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially intense from 1936 to 1938. Its later climate of repression contrasts with the play’s earlier, failed attempt at production.
Russian émigrés: People who left Russia, especially after the 1917 Revolution and Civil War, and formed communities abroad. The play follows exiles confronting lost status and uncertain futures.
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko: A Russian theatre director, playwright, and co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre. He was among the theatre leaders involved in the play’s contested acceptance.

Linked from 10 pages