Chevengur (Masterplots II: World Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Andrei Platonovich Klimentov
- First Published: 1972
- Type of Work: Satire/surrealism
- Time of Work: Shortly before and during the Russian Revolution and Civil War
- Setting: The central provinces of Russia, and Moscow
- Principal Characters: Alexander (Sasha) Dvanov, Prokofy (Proshka) Dvanov, Zakhar Pavlovich, Sonya Mandrova, Stepan Kopenkin
- Genres: Long fiction, Satire, Surrealist literature
- Subjects: Communism or communists, Revolutions, Villages, 1910’s, Russia or Russian people, Utopias, Russian Revolution
- Locales: Moscow, Russia
The Novel
Chevengur is the story of a quest—the search for a place where time is telescoped and Communism has managed to triumph in a matter of weeks. Episodic and fragmented, the novel follows the path of several characters on their way to the village of Chevengur, the workers’ paradise on earth.
When Alexander Dvanov (Sasha) is orphaned, then turned out to beg by his impoverished foster family, he is taken in by Zakhar Pavlovich, a railroad mechanic who “wanted the world really to be endless, so that wheels would always be necessary, ever preparing...
[The entire page is 1825 words long]
