About the work
Don Quixote is Mikhail Bulgakov's stage adaptation of Cervantes' novel, written on commission for a Soviet theatre and completed on 18 December 1938. Bulgakov died in March 1940, shortly before his play premiered almost simultaneously at several theatres – among them the Ostrovsky Theatre in Kineshma on 27 April 1940, and a year later, on 8 April 1941, the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow.
Plot
The ageing country gentleman Alonso Quijano loses himself in tales of chivalry and sets out as Don Quixote, with the peasant Sancho Panza, to right wrongs as a knight errant. After a string of defeats and disappointments, he returns to his village cured of his delusion and dies.
Cultural significance
Bulgakov, who himself suffered under censorship and publication bans, focused his adaptation on Quixote's dignity in defeat rather than the source's broad comedy. That several theatres brought out the play almost simultaneously shows how sought-after the material was shortly after Bulgakov's death; German translations by Thomas Reschke remain available from stage-rights publishers today.