Дни Турбиных Add a review

The Days of the Turbins (Russian: Дни Турбиных, romanized: Dni Turbinykh) is a four-act play by Mikhail Bulgakov that is based upon his novel The White Guard.

It was written in 1925 and premiered on 5 October 1926 in Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) and was directed by Konstantin Stanislavsky. In April 1929, the production was canceled as a result of severe criticism in the Soviet press. On 16 February 1932, the direct interference of Joseph Stalin resulted in the play being resumed, and it continued until June 1941, to considerable public acclaim. It ran for 987 performances in the course of those ten years.

There are three versions of the play's text. The first was written in July to September 1925. The title The Days of the Turbins was also used for the novel itself since its Paris (1927, 1929, Concorde) edition was called The Days of the Turbins (The White Guard). The play's second version was never published in Russian but was translated into German and first came out in Munich in 1934. The third version of the text was published in Moscow in 1955 and was supervised personally by the author and Bulgakov's widow Elena Sergeevna Bulgakova.