Recently a guest from Chicago visited Kyiv — Leonid Stonov, a famous human rights advocate, director of the International Bureau on Human Rights & Rule of Law in the countries of the former USSR, and president of the Union of Councils for Jews in the former Soviet Union. His father, the writer Dmitry Stonov, was a friend of Mikhail Bulgakov in 1920-30s.
Leonid Stonov presented rarities to Kyiv museum that were kept by his family: issue 3 of the Krasnaia Nov magazine (1937) and Bulgakov’s signature. The last document is a note addressed to a friend, “Dear Dmitry, today at 8pm I am reading in journalist Saiansky’s contribution … my grotesque ‘Fatal Eggs.’ I would be glad to see you. Your Mikhail. Oct. 8, 1924.”
A few lines, written by the master in ink on a small piece of paper cannot but thrill the museum staff. Its uniqueness is especially evident in our age of the computers and sms messages. Certainly, it is weird how the note was preserved during many years, crossed the border between the 20th and the 21st centuries, and flew across the Atlantic Ocean twice only to end up at the writer’s house on Andriivsky Uzviz.
The precious items will be displays at the exhibit “Master and Margarita.”
