Monumental Propaganda

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Summary: Voinovich's Latest Literary Exorcism
Review: Most Soviet dissident authors wrote with a heavy, albeit masterful, hand. Authors such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Boris Pasternak, Vasily Grossman and Anatoly Rybakov painted on a broad canvass, penning literary frontal assaults on the Soviet regime. Vladimir Voinovich has always taken a different approach. Where the others fought oppression with outrage, Voinovich fought oppression with satire and wit. His narrower, almost miniature approach was directed at the small absurdities of an apparatchik-governed regime that lacked many things, most notably a sense of humor. From the Extraordinary Adventures of Ivan Chonkin, the Fur Hat, to the Ivankiad, Voinovich took dead aim at the Soviet bureaucracy. His writing was funny, acerbic, and acclaimed in the West. He also took steps to secure the publication of other writer's works in the West. Most notably, Voinovich was responsible, in part, for getting a microfilmed copy of Vasily Grossman's masterpiece, Life and Fate delivered to a publisher in Switzerland. We may never have seen Grossman's brilliant work if not for Voinovich. He also publicly defended Solzhenitsyn in the 1960s and 1970s although that relationship has now turned sour.

As a result, Voinovich became as much a threat to the Soviet regime as any of the other, more somber authors. By 1980, Voinovich was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and exiled to West Germany. Responding to a decree issued by Brezhnev asserting that Voinovich had brought the Soviet regime into disrepute, Voinovich issued a counter-decree that stated: "Mr. Brezhnev, you have highly over estimated my activities. I did not undermine the prestige of the Soviet Government. Thanks to the efforts of the Soviet leadership and your own efforts, the Soviet government has no prestige. Therefore, to do justice, you should deprive yourself of citizenship." Voinovich's wit, and his struggles with the Soviet government informs his Monumental Propaganda.

Monumental Propaganda is set in the city of Dolgov. Its two primary characters are Aglaya Stepanova Revkina (who was a minor character in Chonkin) and a large, iron statue of Stalin. The story opens in 1956 when word gets back to Dolgov of Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin at the 1956 party conference. Aglaya is horrified. She is a war hero, a life time communist, and more than anything else devoted to Comrade Stalin. The story takes us from 1956 to the present. As the world and Dolgov changes, Aglaya remains unshaken in her devotion to Stalin. Shortly after the denunciation, the town's party leaders tear down Stalin's statue and plan to haul it to a factory for smelting. Aglaya will have none of that. She manages to have the statue installed in her apartment where it remains for the rest of her life. Aglaya loses her position and her party membership because of her unflinching devotion to Stalin. The statue carries with it an almost supernatural presence, one that the town and the world, unlike Aglaya would like very much to exorcise. The book serves as a de facto exorcism of Stalin and the Soviet regime. It doesn't treat the new Russia much better.

Voinovich takes us and a delightful cast of characters, including Voinovich himself, through the Khrushchev regime, then Brezhnev, Chernenko and Andropov and ultimately through contemporary Russia. Russian life is neatly put into categories by one of Voinovich's characters: "Cellar terrorism(under Lenin, when they shot people in the cellars of the Extraordinary Commission, or Cheka), the Great Terror (under Stalin), Terror Within the Limits of Leninist Norms (under Khrushchev), Selective Terror (under Brezhnev), Traditional Terror (under Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev), and [now] Terror Unlimited.

In describing Alexei Makaraov, the book's moral compass Voinovich notes that his "postgraduate dissertation on problems of linguistics . . . was so brilliant that at first they wanted to award him a doctorate for it, but then they gave him five years in exile instead." The book is filled with casually tossed off sentences like this that left me laughing to myself. Some references may not be understood by the casual reader. For example, Voinovich has a short set piece that pretty much summarizes the evolution of Voinovich's relationship with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from admiration to mutual belligerence. It might not make much sense unless one understood the actual dispute between the two great dissidents. Having said that, these are relatively few and far between and should not detract from anyone's enjoyment of the book. The book has an explosive climax, in every sense of the word. It is in a very real sense a literary exorcism of Stalin.

Although the book's story line suffers from some weakness and the story tends to wander a bit, the brilliance of Voinovich's writing and his ability to make me laugh made the wandering all the more enjoyable. This is an excellent book that will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in good writing.


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Summary: "An abundance of poets is a sign of a people's savagery."
Review: Vladimir Voinovich, in his first novel in twelve years, begins this satiric tale in Dolgov, a small town outside Moscow in 1949, when Aglaya Stepanova Revkina, a devoted follower of Josef Stalin, persuades the Committee to erect a piece of "monumental propaganda," a statue of Stalin, in the square. Mediocre sculptor Max Ogorodov miraculously creates a statue that is extraordinarily lifelike, seeming to breathe on its pedestal. Focusing on Aglaya and the statue, from the "glories" of the Stalin Era through Krushchev, Brezhnev and his successors, including Gorbachev, and on up to the present, the novel illustrates satirically the successive changes in Soviet philosophy and focus. These new visions of reality always involve some sort of terror.

When Stalin falls from grace, Aglaya falls, too, and when the party determines that the statue of Stalin will be purged from the square, Aglaya arranges with the salvager to convey the statue to her living room, which, with its 3-meter high ceilings, is just high enough for it. She becomes a reluctant part of the poor local community, as first one version of truth and then another comes into fashion and rules the country. By 1961, Aglaya finds that "the party has been polluted by an alien element," but when Krushchev is deposed, she is saddened to learn there will be no return to Stalinism. For twenty years, as various philosophies come and go, she is like a sleepwalker, immune to her surroundings. Eventually, her party is disbanded, and, ironically, a casino is built on the premises. As the spirit of capitalism affects Dolgov and inspires some of its least admirable characters, a cottage industry in assassination evolves.

The novel illustrates fifty years of change in Soviet political theory through exaggerated characters. Because they serve a satirical purpose and their thinking and experiences are so different from our own, it is difficult to see them as humans and to identify with their actions. Aglaya herself is a caricature who does not change. The narrative is told in simple, often amusing, episodes, but the names of the characters follow the Russian tradition of three names and usually one nickname, and are difficult to follow. Although the prose is formal and the speaker is remote, this satire is often very funny, however, and ironies and absurdities abound. Thoughtful and full of profound observations, the novel should appeal to those with a strong interest in Soviet history and literature and a curiosity about contemporary Russian life. Mary Whipple