ABOUT EUGENIJ SCHWARTZ AND HIS "AJDER"

Not in vain to the country sent
It was you, my sweet baby.

The first attempt to stage "The Dragon" was made by the director Nikolai Akimov with the ensemble of the Leningrad Comedy Theater. But, the play was banned immediately, day after the premiere, on 4 August 1944 year 18 years, the same director staged it in the same theater, but "Ajderot" was banned a month after the premiere. The same her 1962 year was staged in the MGU Student Theater under the direction of Mark Zakharov, but the play was banned after 17 replays. Even Khrushchevism did not prove to be more "democratic" than Stalinism when it came to "The Dragon", the most profound of Schwartz's three sentences. The other two are The Naked King (1934) and "Shadow" (1940).

But, already in 1965 year, "The Dragon" crossed the borders of the USSR. Student of Bertolt Brecht, Benoit Besson, staged it with huge success in Berlin. The play was played until 1981 year and experienced 580 replays. In 1967 year,"Ajderot" also had its French premiere, directed by Antoine Vitez, another great director from Western Europe. And then, in 1969 year, the premiere of the opera "Lancelot" took place at the State Opera in Berlin (according to the motives of "Ajderot") by composer Paul Dessau (another Brechtian!).

Evgeny Schwartz died on 15 January 1958 year and he did not wait to see the success of his story for adults "Azhder" in the homeland and outside it. His memoirs were first published in France in 1982 year, and even in 1990 year in Russia, under the title "I Live Disturbed".

Why "Ajderot" today and here? Because even today, in 21 century, here and in the world, not the power of Azhderoth, but the internal slavery, the weakness of the citizens and their willingness to put up with evil allows it to reign. The most difficult of the tasks that the hero is facing, the knight lancelot, it is not to defeat the monster. Lancelot has a more difficult task ahead of him, he has to kill the ajder in each of the citizens. Is it possible to preserve humanity after realizing the deep imperfection of people??

Before the end of "The Dragon", The flower girl will utter the schwartzian ironic formula: Be patient, Sir Lancelot. I beg you - be patient. Feel it. Grow brussels sprouts – the heat helps them grow. Remove the weeds carefully so as not to damage the healthy roots. If you think about it, people in essence, also, perhaps, with all the fences, however, they deserve a careful approach. Schwartz remained faithful to this attitude. When a few years later he wrote the screenplay for the film "Don Quixote" by Grigoriy Kozintsev, in it, the same motif of "difficult knightly love for people" sounded.

Is chivalry possible today?? Faced with souls without hands, soul without a leg, deaf and dumb souls, little souls, slimy souls, damned souls, desolation of the soul, sold souls, burnt souls and dead souls, a legacy left by the ajders of yesterday and the day before yesterday, will the knights not be forced to turn into knights? Is chivalry possible in our world? A world where ajderism is the only ideology worshiped by souls whose impotence is so malleable,poisoned with hate, to line up again in a crowd that will trample the remnants of humanity and civilization.

We in the theater are left with the obligation to warn of the disastrous consequences of legitimizing ageism as an inevitable evil.. Our allies in this endeavor are the authors whose works transcend the boundaries of their lives. Evgeniy Schwartz is undoubtedly one of them.

Vladimir Milchin, director