The Major Plays of Nikolai Erdman

This volume contains the text of both The Suicide and Erdman’s first major albeit less known work, The Warrant . Although both plays were written in the early 1920s, they were haunted by the political spectre of totalitarianism and it was only in the 1980s that they began to be staged regularly worldwide. The plays themselves, full of political satire and paradox, show the skill of this playwright. In addition, the historical context of the plays and Erdman’s use of language are discussed.