Novel
The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin
Жизнь и необычайные приключения солдата Ивана Чонкина
Vladimir Voinovich · 1969
Synopsis
In June 1941, a military aircraft that has broken down lands near an isolated kolkhoz. Ivan Chonkin, the soldier the army can most easily do without, is sent to guard it. War breaks out and his superiors forget him: Chonkin settles in with a local peasant woman, Nyura, shares her life and goes on watching over the fuselage while waiting for a relief that never comes. In the village, people begin to wonder about this armed soldier whom nobody has sent for.
Context
Rejected by Novy mir, the novel circulated in samizdat; extracts appeared without the author's consent in 1969 in the émigré journal Grani, which got him banned from publishing. The complete first part appeared in Russian in 1975, in Frankfurt and Paris. Richard Lourie's English translation came out in 1977; in French, the book is read in the translation by Alain Préchac and Stefan Radov, reissued in 2025 in the Points collection.
Who it is for
A comic and satirical novel that reads easily; it helps to know how the war began in June 1941.
Prizes and reception
According to the French publisher, a farce that calls into question not heroism, but its petrification by those in power.
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