Talk Is Free Theatre (TIFT) from Barrie, Ontario will be presenting excerpts of their English-language production of Bulgakov’s early 1930s play Molière, or League of Hypocrites at the Bulgakov International Art Festival in Kyiv. Bulgakov, the Kyiv-born playwright, author and doctor best known for his novel The Master and the Margarita, had plenty of reason to be disconsolate during his lifetime when his satires were banned in the Soviet Union. But is Bulgakhov, who spent most of his career in Moscow, to be celebrated as a Ukrainian writer or a Russian writer? It’s a question that has re-emerged since Ukraine’s independence.
Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavel Lazarenko, who fled his country after losing a power struggle and settled in a Bay Area mansion, won reversal of six of his 14 criminal convictions Friday but failed to persuade a court to overturn charges that he laundered more than $20 million through U.S. banks.