It was Stalin who initiated the production of a movie about Ivan the Terrible and personally approved Sergei Eisenstein's script. Moreover, he is a deeply conscientious writer: he writes about things he knows well,” wrote Stalin regarding the novel. There is a legend that Tvardovsky was not on the award list for the ‘Stalin Prize’, because the poem doesn’t mention Stalin at all. “The Days of the Turbins is a demonstration of the all-crushing power of Bolshevism,” Stalin wrote. Stalin recognized Bulgakov's literary talent and even personally saved the writer from press persecution and a ban on his works being published.