The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin/Pretender to the Throne (Masterplots II: World Fiction Series)
At a glance:
- Author: Vladimir Voinovich
- First Published: 1975
- Type of Work: Sociopolitical satire
- Time of Work: Summer, 1941
- Setting: Krasnoe, a fictive village in rural Russia
- Principal Characters: Ivan Chonkin, Nyura Belyashova, Ivan Golubev, Kuzma Gladishev, Captain Milyaga, Lieutenant Filippov, Major Figurin, Kapitolina “Kapa” Goryachev, Boris Ermolkin, Pavel Evpraksein
- Genres: Long fiction, Satire, Political fiction
- Subjects: Prisoners, Love or romance, 1940’s, Military life or service, Soldiers, Espionage or spies, Russia or Russian people, Soviet Union or Soviets, Hostages or hostage taking
- Locales: Krasnoye, Russia
The Novels
Vladimir Voinovich’s novel The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin and its sequel, Pretender to the Throne, are caustic satires of Soviet-Russian society which lampoon the labyrinthine bureaucracy, banalities, and ineptness of the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, the Soviet “secret” police.
After a small plane of the Soviet Air Force makes a forced landing on a field near the village of Krasnoe, Ivan Chonkin, a soldier, is dispatched to Krasnoe to guard the plane. Chonkin is a poor excuse for a soldier, with...
[The entire page is 3276 words long]
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