''The Cabal of Hypocrites'' (russian: Кабала святош, translit=Kabala svyatosh) is a four-act play by Mikhail Bulgakov also known as ''Molière''. Written in 1929 for the Moscow Art Theatre, it was read by Bulgakov for Stanislavski and his team at the 19 January 1930 meeting. The play, accepted by the theatre for production, was promptly banned by the state Repertoire Committee (Glavrepertkom). A year and a half later, after personal interference by

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...

, the ban was lifted. In March 1932 the rehearsals started, under the guidance of the director Nikolai Gorchakov. They lasted for four years and became the major cause for the rift between Bulgakov and Stanislavski who in 1935 decided he did not want to do anything with the play and asked

Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko (russian: Владимир Иванович Немирович-Данченко; , Ozurgeti – 25 April 1943, Moscow), was a Soviet and Russian theatre director, writer, pedagogue, playwright, producer an ...

to deal with it from then on. The play premiered on 16 February 1936 and enjoyed huge success. But on 9 March the article "Glamorous on the Surface, False Beneath" appeared in ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...

'' and ''Molière'' was banned, after just seven sold out performances. In October that year Bulgakov left the Moscow Art Theatre calling it in his diary "the graveyard of my plays" and referring to it as "the theatre where ''Molière'' had been destroyed" in a letter to his friend

Vikenty Veresayev Vikenty Vikentyevich Smidovich (16 January 1867 – 3 June 1945), better known by his pen name Vikenty Vikentyevich Veresaev, (russian: Вике́нтий Вике́нтьевич Вереса́ев) was a Russian and Soviet writer, translat ...

. ''The Cabal of Hypocrites'' was published for the first time in 1962 by the Iskusstvo Publishers. It enjoyed great revival in the Soviet Theatre during the 1960s and is considered now part of the legacy of classic Russian drama.Кабала святош
/ The Cabal of Hypocrites. The play's history at the Bulgakov site

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cabal of Hypocrites, The 1929 plays Russian plays Plays by Mikhail Bulgakov