Der lebende Leichnam
Erdman's next collaboration with Meyerhold was "The Suicide" (1928), "a spectacular mixture of the ridiculous and the sublime", universally recognized as one of the finest plays written during the Soviet period. The play draws on the theme of the faked suicide, which had been introduced into Russian literature by Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin in "The Death of Tarelkin" (1869) and was explored by Leo Tolstoy in "The Living Corpse" (1900).