Pretender to the Throne: The Further Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (European Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Very good satire!
Review: "Pretender to the trone" is the sequel to "The Extraordinary Adventures of Private Iwan Chonkin", and almost as funny (in a grim way)! Those who enjoyed "Iwan Chonkin" should also read this sequel. In the Russian edition I read, they were joined in one volume.

Rating:
Summary: Satirical Bombardment
Review: World War II is on and Chonkin is imprisoned in this sequal to his extraordinary adventures. Chonkin figures less prominently in this sequal. I think, the major character here is the social system itself. Voinovich does not spare anyone or anything: Joseph Stalin, the Soviet military planning, and the prison system--all are criticized. Bumbling bureaucrats continue to bludner like there was no tomorrow. For example, they capture and execute an honest junior officer as a spy, while the real spy continues to work undisturbed. And the bumbling of this sort is pittance in comparison to what has just gone on--the 1937/38 terror. Most outstanding people have been destroyed on no greater basis than wild accusations and Stalin's paranoia. It turns out that the most potent weapon in the war on the cream of society's crop is a simple pencil! Write an accusation on someone who works hard in his field and has his head in the clouds, not paying attention to politics, and that person is soon arrested and executed. Given this absurd atmosphere of repression and the pressure and fear put on the government by war, Chonkin must languish in prison on suspicion of being a descendant of a noble Russian family which is trying to overthrow the government and open the gates to the Germans!

Voinovich's satire is right on target. This book is funny and educational. If you live in a Western democracy you will, at a minimum, reap one important benefit from reading this--you will appreciate even more what you have in your country today. I assigned a number of Russian writers in my Modern Russian Politics class last year, and this is exactly what the impact was. Read Voinovich--his books are humorous and different.