Животът и необикновените приключения на войника Иван Чонкин

Private Chonkin #1

by Vladimir Voinovich, Иван Тотоманов (translator)

Първата световна война роди храбрия войник Швейк; Втората световна - руския му събрат войника Иван Чонкин. Българският читател получава за пръв път в целостта му - с І и II книга - прочутия роман, донесъл световна слава на Владимир Войнович, но и затварянето му в лудница и в крайна сметка - изгонването му от бившия Съветски съюз през 1981 г. Това ни най-малко не пречи на войника Чонкин да продължава победния си марш по света, показвайки абсурдите не само на една рухнала вече система, но и на всяка организация, основана върху страха и терора.

Genres: Fiction, Russia, Russian Literature, Humor, War, Historical Fiction, Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Vladimir Voinovich (rus. Владимир Николаевич Войнович) was born in what is now Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, but which at the time of his birth was Stalinabad, a city in the USSR.

Voinovich started writing and publishing poetry during the army service; he later switched to writing prose and ultimately became famous as a master of satirical depiction of the absurdity of Soviet life. However, he does not forgo real people in favor of the grand scheme of things.

Satiric fiction has never been popular under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. Voinovich's writing and political activity (dissident) led to his expulsion from the Writer's Union (194), emigration to Germany (1980), and loss of USSR citizenship (1981; restored 10 years later).

Voinovich is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Department of Language and Literature.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, bowlegged, big red ears, field shirt sticking out over his belt, Private Ivan Chonkin, the hero of Vladimir Voinovich’s novel, has been likened to Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, and for good reason – like Švejk, Chonkin is an everyman forever at war with the forces - political, military, social, whatever - that use the iron fist of power in an attempt to obliterate a person’s unique individuality and humanity.

Squarely in the great tradition of satire and the absurdist fiction of Gogol, Kharms and Zabolotsky, with The Life & Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin Vladimir Voinovich served up enough anti-Soviet zingers to contribute to his eventually getting kicked out of the country and stripped of his citizenship.

The storyline is simple: a pilot of a Soviet aircraft makes a forced landing in the farming village of Krasnoye near his Air Force base. Private Ivan Chonkin is sent to guard the military’s property.

I so much enjoyed the novel’s narrator telling readers directly how he amassed information on the subject of Chonkin and the village and added a little something of his own. And how he would have taken a tall, well built, disciplined military hero for his main character but all those crack students of military and political theory where already taken up and all he was left with was Chonkin. However, he urges us to treat his novel’s hero (Chonkin) as we would our very own child since when we have a child we get what we get and don’t throw the kid out the window.

Likewise, I relished the Mikhail Bulgakovesque dream sequences that gave Mr. Voinovich the opportunity to flex his creative imagination. Chonkin has his first dream when he’s sleeping in bed with Nyurka, his new girlfriend from the village. He watches as none other than Comrade Stalin slowly descends from the sky holding his rifle and wearing a woman’s dress. Stalin tells the sergeant in charge that Private Chonkin abandoned his post guarding the aircraft, lost his combat weapon and therefore deserves to be shot.

In our hero’s second dream, he attends a wedding reception where the groom and all the guests turn out to be not humans but pigs. Oh, no, he's been duped! Chonkin realizes he has blurted out a classified military secret to the first person (actually a pig) he ran into at the table. And one of the dire consequences of his fatal mistake? Humanork is on the menu! A tray bearing naked Comrade Stalin holding his famous pipe, all garnished with onions and green peas. Stalin grins slyly to himself behind his mustache.

The third dream is another doozy. This time the dreamer is Gladishev, one of the villagers who is a prototypical Soviet “new” man of science. In Gladishev’s dream his horse Osya informs him in plain Russian that he is no longer a horse but a human being. Gladishev says if Osya is a true Soviet human he would go to the front to fight the Germans. Osya replies that Gladishev is the dumbest person in the world since he should know a horse doesn’t have fingers to pull a trigger.

These are but snatches catching several colorful, hilarious bits. What's noteworthy is the way these dreams reinforce a major theme running throughout the novel: the prevailing Soviet system is a complete misreading of the rhythms of nature and life. Such an inept, ass-backwards system will lead men like Gladishev to do such things as fill his house with shit, even eat shit and drink water mixed with shit, based on scientific and materialistic calculations that all life is nourished by shit.

Such a misreading has its effect on all areas of Soviet life and community. For instance, at one village meeting the chairman of the local kolkhoz (collective farm) chastises members who fail to work the minimum number of workdays. Among the Comrades singled out for a tongue lashing is Zhikin, one of those who flaunts his age and illnesses. The chairman goes on: “Of course I realize that Zhikin is a disabled Civil War veteran and has not legs. But now he’s cashing in on those legs of his. . . Let him sit himself down in a furrow and crawl from bush to bush at his own speed, weeding as he goes and thereby fulfilling the minimum workday requirements.”

The chairman also is vocal when the village learns of the German offensive against their country: “The war will write everything off. The main thing’s to get to the front as fast as possible; there either you get a chest full of metals or a head full of bullets, but either way, at least you can live like an honest man.”

Such Soviet wisdom peppers every page. This is a very funny book. But as you are laughing, Comrades, you will be brought face-to-face with life on a community farm and in the military that is downright cruel and brutalizing.

One last example that really tickled my funny-bone. The narrator relays a rapid change of chairmen over at another village. The first chairman was put in jail for stealing, the second for seducing minors, and the third took to drinking and kept on drinking until he drank up everything he owned and all the kolkhoz funds. Things got so bad he hanged himself but left a one world suicide note – “Ech” with three exclamation points. The narrator tells us nobody figured out what that “Ech!!!” was supposed to mean. Actually, even as an American in 2018 I have a pretty good idea what he was getting at with his “Ech!!!” --- I CAN’T TAKE THIS ANY MORE!!!

Having read The Fur Hat and Moscow 2042 I wanted to treat myself to Vladimir Voinovich’s classic earlier work. I’m glad I did. I enjoy laughing and this novel provided ample opportunities. I can see why Ivan Chonkin is now a widely known figure in Russian popular culture.


Vladimir Voinovich, Born 1932

"Kuzma Gladishev was known as a learned man not only in Krasnoye but in the entire area. One of the many proofs of his erudition was the wooden outhouse in his garden, on which was written in large black letters, in English, WATER CLOSET." - Vladimir Voinovich, The Life & Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been called 'the Russian Švejk', and I can certainly see that. It's a farce; and it kept me smiling then laughing, at a little sly humor or at outright buffoonery.

Skewering the communist system: A meeting is an arrangement whereby a large number of people gather together, some to say what they really do not think, some not to say what they really do.

Or the foolishness of war: Chonkin did not learn about what had happened (Barbarossa) immediately because he was sitting in the outhouse, in no hurry to leave.

The laugh out loud part is when, through a misunderstanding, a Russian officer escaping from Chonkin is thought by other Russian officials to be a German soldier. He has to be interrogated, right? So they find some junior lieutenant who 'studied' German in school. What he actually learned pretty much began and ended with : Heute ist das Wasser warm. But in he goes to question 'the German'. The poor Russian officer wakes from a concussion, thanks to a rifle butt to the jaw, and is groggily confronted by this soldier barking some Guten Morgen, Herr at him. Thinking himself captured by the Nazis, he starts shouting Heil Hitler! Stalin kaput!

I was entertained.

_____ _____ _____ _____ _____

Not that these star rating thingies really matter, but I bumped this up a half-star because Vladimir Voinovich is the guy who carried the micro-filmed pages of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate to the West. That has to count for something.

[Enrique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disparatado el escenario en que se nos presenta al soldado ruso Ivan Chonkin, al cual se le encomienda una misión no menos ridícula. Esta propuesta del autor, por más loca que parezca resulta bastante adictiva. Comienzas a verlo como las aventuras y desventuras de un tipo un tanto simplón, y acabas por darle un valor literario importante, y con un mensaje de fondo de peso. Este Chonkin en cuestión es un personaje de un atractivo literario indiscutible: es de ese estilo de personajes ya universales como Ignatius Reilly, Oblomov, Pickwick, etc, uno de esos tipos literarios tan tontos como entrañables… o el mismo padre de todos ellos, Don Quijote.
 
Según decía, lo que en apariencia pudiera parecerse a un serial de aventuras del personaje en cuestión en un pueblo perdido de la Rusia previa a la II Guerra Mundial, pero que en realidad  va mucho más allá; se trata de una crítica contundente al régimen soviético en su conjunto tras la Revolución: a la falta de eficiencia del sistema colectivo agrario de los koljos, a la economía comunal que camufla la desidia de los trabajadores, a la idolatría incondicional al líder, una crítica a la forma de cuidar la apariencia y de cumplir con lo que se espera de cada cual en este régimen dictatorial, una ironía sobre los miedos de cada cual a las purgas cada uno en su escala, los jefes por jefes, el pueblo llano por simple, en todos hay miedo y todos ven fantasmas de represión  en su entorno por las cosas más disparatadas, como dar un golpe accidental a la imagen del líder, o una opinión mal entendida, o una delación. Ridiculiza al ejército: las dudosas capacidades intelectuales del Ejército Rojo, sus estructuras y cadenas de mando; o lo incomprensible de la guerra.
 
Hay veces en que se producen conversaciones delirantes y graciosas de tan absurdas como son. Veo también esa corriente de la escritura del absurdo de mediados del siglo pasado en toda la novela. Recuerdo un diálogo en que dos de los protagonistas discuten sobre un supuesto infundio vertido sobre Stalin en 1916, y abren un debate en cuanto al desconocimiento que tienen todos de que la Revolución rusa se produjera en 1917 (y no antes), o la ausencia de la presencia de Stalin y Lenin en la Rusia de 1916 en que gobernaba el zar; otra conversación ridícula en cuanto a si el primer ministro ruso antes de la revolución era el padre de zar, todo ello a cuenta de los nombres y el lío de los patronímicos rusos: Alexander Trepov era primer ministro, y el zar Nicolas II: Nikolai Aleksandrovich…ese ich patronímico ruso que pudiera relacionarse con el primer ministro como supuesto padre…entendí la gracia pero es complicado y brillante. Buena me pareció también la traducción y las notas a pie de página que explican determinadas formas de dar contexto a la narración con la traducción realizada.
 
Esta situación en que Voinovich lleva al ridículo a sus personajes y la propia estructura soviética que se mantuvo durante décadas, así como el desconocimiento que tenía el pueblo sobre todo ese entramado, e incluso sobre el origen mismo de la revolución, me recordaba las conversaciones que tenía yo con mis abuelos de niño, y el desconocimiento que existía en España en el medio rural sobre origen de la Guerra Civil Española: la gente pensaba en su huerto, en su pueblo, en sus cosechas y en sus familias, y al igual que en Rusia y en otras tantas revoluciones y guerras, la gente sencilla, era ajena a los fines que se perseguían en otras esferas de poder o militares. En nuestro país de buenas a primeras se vieron en una lucha fratricida y obligados a posicionarse en un bando o en el contrario, en la mayoría de los casos, sin elementos de juicio para discernir mucho más allá de la zona del conflicto en que le hubiera caído en suerte defender a cada cual, de forma aleatoria.
 
No me han gustado pequeños detalles de lector puntilloso, lo reconozco: 1) El libro está escrito en 1970 y la crítica del autor solo va centrada hacia Stalin, hacia la desestalinización que se inició en la URSS tras su muerte en los años 50, se le ridiculiza y hace escarnio. No digo que no sea merecido este trato, pero el autor no lo hace del todo extensible a todo el régimen, y sí al estalinismo que ya por esa época el propio sistema soviético trataba de denostar; aunque como decía al inicio, hay algunos palos un poco para todos, 2) Nunca me han gustado los sueños dentro de las novelas, aquí usa a menudo esa técnica, aunque en general son buenos, los hace demasiado extensos.
 
La parte final de nuevo es brillante de tan delirante y absurda como nos presenta el autor ese desenlace de la situación en que se acaba instalando Chonkin, como jefe de un grupo sobre lo que ya no contaré nada.

[None Ofyourbusiness Loves Israel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ivan Chonkin, a hapless Red Army private with the build of a turnip and the mind of one too, is sent to guard a crashed airplane in a village so remote even Stalin's paranoia forgets its postal code. The military promptly loses track of him, and he settles into a surreal domesticity with the local postwoman, Nyura, who accepts him less as a man and more as “כמו כלב שמירה עם נזלת” (“a watchdog with a runny nose”).

He’s the accidental Icarus of bureaucratic absurdity, flapping his arms through policies he doesn’t understand, surviving by a peculiar, bovine tenacity.

When he dares to ask whether Stalin had two wives—“האמת הדבר, כי לחבר סטלין היו שתי נשים?” (“Is it true that Comrade Stalin had two wives?”)—it triggers a hysterical meltdown in his superior. “זו לא שאלה, זו השמצה אנטי־מהפכנית!” (“That’s not a question, that’s counterrevolutionary slander!”). This is a state where grammar is dangerous and sincerity a punishable offense.

As Chonkin bumbles through misassigned glory, political indoctrination, and livestock diplomacy, Voinovich sketches a grotesque pageant of Soviet dysfunction, where tractors are mythical beasts, bathhouses double as interrogation chambers, and even a cow may end up accused of sabotage.

One colonel forgets that airplanes need engines, another believes collective farming works by yelling at the land. A man named Felchboy insists a crashed plane nearly clipped Nyura’s chimney by “חמישה סנטימטרים” (��five centimeters”), as if measuring state catastrophe with a tailor’s tape. Meanwhile, a village drunk named Felchboy informs the crowd that if the plane had hit Nyura’s chimney, they’d be scrubbing her guts off the walls by morning, then adds that the local pervert would have gladly volunteered.

Chonkin’s greatest achievement is possibly shooting a cow and inadvertently becoming a counterrevolutionary folk hero.

A village chairman drinks himself into such existential clarity that he hangs himself in the workroom and leaves behind a suicide note with a single word: “אחֶ” (“Brotheeeer”), followed by three exclamation marks and zero explanation. A cow is put on trial for espionage. A pilot, mistaken for a god or a German, is evaluated by women not for his orders but for the quality of his leather jacket—“עור כרום או עור עזים?” (“Is that chrome leather or goatskin?”).

An old man debates aerodynamics while whittling a pig’s femur. And when Chonkin is ordered to guard the downed plane, he’s given no instructions, no backup, and only a sack of turnips. This is a world where an official military report might include livestock damage, ideological contamination, and a missing harmonica.

He is a soldier so unsuitable that even his punishment becomes a bureaucratic embarrassment. The villagers, swaddled in gossip and manure, treat him as something between a prophet and a fungus. “אין צורך להסביר דבר לצ’ונקין... בכל זאת לא יבין” (“There’s no need to explain anything to Chonkin… he wouldn’t understand anyway”). Yet in his incomprehension lies a kind of genius: he survives.

Voinovich doesn’t offer a hero but a human potato, who outlasts tanks, memos, and ideological zeal through sheer accidental inertia. Totalitarianism doesn’t need evil geniuses to thrive, only enough obedient morons, passive peasants, and middle managers who fear looking stupid more than they fear injustice.

Voinovich laughs Soviet regime out of the room, replacing grand historical struggle with pigsties, paperwork, and paranoia so pedestrian it might be lethal. Chonkin, the everyman who understands nothing and therefore survives everything, becomes an accidental rebuke to a system so self-important it can’t distinguish between revolution and chicken feed. The state sees enemies in cows, heroes in janitors, and subversion in grammar.

It’s ugly, necessary, and filled with material that sticks in memory. This isn’t the noble Russian canon of soul-searching misery, it’s the low comic B-side, where a nation collapses into its own acronym soup. Voinovich dares you to laugh so hard the censors choke.

After publishing a few short stories in Novy Mir, he was quickly branded an ideological deviant for portraying Soviet life as it actually was: corrupt, incompetent, and held together by vodka and collective delusion. The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin was utterly unpublishable in the USSR; it first appeared in 1969 in the émigré journal Grani in Frankfurt, smuggled across borders like contraband truth in a suitcase of jokes.

The Soviet regime responded as regimes do when mocked too accurately: Voinovich was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers in 1974, followed by the usual menu of phone tapping, harassment, and travel restrictions. In 1980, the state made it official - they stripped him of his citizenship altogether.

Like a character in one of his own books, Voinovich found himself absurdly stateless, exiled for telling the truth in punchlines. Only in 1990, with the Soviet state in its own terminal farce, was his citizenship restored. By then, the cow had already been tried, the typewriters had jammed, and Voinovich had proven that laughter could outlast Lenin.

"הצבא האדום, הצי האדום וכל אזרחי ברית־המועצות חייבים להילחם עד טיפת הדם האחרונה... להפגין אומץ־לב, יזמה ותושיה שעמנו מצטיין בהם. כל אדם חייב לעקוב אחר התנהגות שכנו, ידידו, ואפילו בני ביתו, שמא הם… אויבים במסווה."

"בקראסנויה... הנשים תמיד היו או הרות או לאחר לידה, ולפעמים רק לאחר לידה וכבר שוב הרות. כאילו חוק הטבע אצלן היה מס שפתיים בלבד – כל עונה עונת רבייה."

"צ'ונקין שקע בהרהור: 'לו היה להפך – קר בקיץ ובחורף חם – אז היה הקיץ נקרא חורף והחורף היה נקרא קיץ.' ואז שכח מה חשב. וזכר ששכח. וזה הדאיג אותו יותר מהכל."

"כדי לחסל את 'כנופיית צ'ונקין' — שמנתה אדם אחד, פרה אחת ורובה אחד — הוקצתה יחידת חיל רגלים חמושה כהלכה. 'הבעיה היא אידיאולוגית,' פסקו. 'הפרה לא עברה חינוך סוציאליסטי.'"

[Jan-Maat]

Chonkin a hapless, stupid soldier, is a classic Ivan from a folk tale who although simple and straight forward will win through in the end. Taken out of his environment and placed in another ecosystem things quickly look very different.

Sent to guard an aeroplane that was forced to land in a village, the dumbest soldier in the Red Army becomes the cleverest man for miles around. There he finds true love in the shape of the cleverest woman in the village a woman who is beautifully described as ' literate', to contextualise her response in a moment of crisis which plainly is right and appropriate. Alas the craziness of the world ensures that things rapidly go wrong in order to maintain the comedy, but not too badly wrong since Voinovich was able to continue the story in a sequel Pretender to the Throne admittedly though this a sequel that can be happily and productively missed.

One of the few books with a joke featuring Stalin's two wives, as well as a man trying to develop a plant which grows potatoes at the root and fruits tomatoes off the stem too.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is easy to understand why many reviewers of Vladimir Voinovich’s The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin to its Czech forerunner in The Good Soldier Švejk. Both characters are hapless peasants, drafted in the Army where their main goal is to finish their time and go home. In the case of Private Chonkin, he is a few days from his discharge and is the lest soldierly of his regiment. This makes him the obvious choice to be sent off base, to a remote village, with a few days supply of food and orders to stand watch over a crash laded aircraft from his unit. Guard duty is universally understood to be soul killing work, there being nothing to do but stand and watch and await relief. In Pvt Chonkin’s world no one can relieve a guard except the Corporal of the guard, the Sargent of the guard and maybe, but he is not sure a general. He has never met a general, but that seems like something a general should be able to do.

Very quickly he becomes bored and very quickly he catches the eye of the village post mistress. She is single and very appreciative to have a hard-working peasant- Albeit one in an army uniform, available to do yard work, prepare meals and be loyal after-hours company.

Somewhere in the vaster reaches of Mother Russia a war is about to happen. It will come as a surprise and will make desperate calls for soldiers and farm work. But that will be over there, in that part of the vastness of Russia. Over here is Pvt. Chonkin, his regiment has long since forgotten about him and the post mistress, her pig and cow are far more to Chokin’s liking.

All of this could be plot lines in The Good Soldier, or even added into the American comic strip Beetle Bailey. What makes this distinctly Russian are the steady broadsides at the expense of the Bureaucracy and the Soviet era’s dependence on fear. Russian humor has a long tradition of poking fun at the bureaucracy. Long before the Communists, government was repressive. Very senior people could make life miserable for their juniors. For a lower level bureaucrat being correct was a bad choice if, by being correct embarrasses his superior.

Early in the book, Chonkin’s sergeant while writing to his far away girlfriend, makes a strong case for staying in the Army, because he gets to push around lower ranking troops. He is suddenly in the presence of his captain who issues panicked, on the double orders ending for the sergeant any chance to waste his work day as was his wont. Of course, he will modify his letter accordingly.

Having been on the lookout for Russian humor, it is possible to anticipate some of the satire. Juniors quail before seniors, and in the absence of believers the local philosophy becomes the same as Pvt Chonkin’s: 1) work slowly 2) delay your work since the higher ups might change their mind. Voinovich adds in some clever takes against Soviet era science and its strange preference for the propaganda value of science rather than its actual possibilities. A local farmer becomes fixated on the notion of cross breading tomato and potato plants. The expected result being a plant with potatoes in the ground and tomatoes on its limbs. Our farmer is a man of science, dedicated to his goal and having attracted so favorable press he is left alone. Alone in this case means filling his house and his food with the crudest forms of fertilizers. Side notes the joke is slightly less successful in Russian, as the words for tomato and potato are not so much alike. The extended satire of the seriously evil, certain secret organization (the never named ‘smiling’ state police, NKVD) provides some of the best humor in the book.

Over all the satire in The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin can be heavy handed, but in that it is much like a lot of Russian satire. In the case of Vladimir Voinovich it did cost him his citizenship, and it did get him back during glasnost. Oddly Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed him to live out his 85 years without a fall from grace, or a window. Then again, Vionovich, also satirized Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

[Carmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Querido lector, seguramente no se te habrá escapado que la escasa estatura, las piernas zambas y las orejas rojas eran las características de Iván Chonkin, aquel soldado que cumplía su último año de servicio. «¡Pues vaya figura desdichada! —dirás con enojo—. ¿Qué ejemplo es ése para la generación joven? ¿Y dónde habrá visto el autor un “héroe” semejante, así, entre comillas?» Y yo, el autor, entre la espada y la pared; cogido, como suele decirse, con las manos en la masa, me veré obligado a reconocer que no lo he visto en ningún lugar, sino que lo extraje de mi imaginación, y no precisamente con ánimo de proponerlo como ejemplo, sino únicamente para pasar el rato. «Admitamos que fuera así —replicarás con recelo—, pero ¿por qué inventar? ¿Es que el autor no pudo copiar de la vida misma su modelo? ¿Un gigante de la guerra, alto, apuesto, disciplinado, con sobresalientes calificaciones en formación militar y política?» Claro que habría sido preferible, pero no llegué a tiempo. Todos los dechados habían sido ya empleados por alguien como modelo, y a mí no me quedó más que Chonkin. Y aunque al principio reaccioné con amargura, acabé por resignarme. Porque, al igual que al hijo, al héroe de un libro hay que aceptarlo tal cual es; no puede uno echarlo por la ventana. Aunque los hijos ajenos tal vez sean mejores, más listos, eso no impide que queramos más al propio, precisamente por eso, porque es nuestro.

Absolutamente genial. ¡Qué gran descubrimiento!
(Ni el maestro Gila podría haberme hecho reír tanto)

[Namrirru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yikes! How does this have such a bad "rating?" This book is hilarious! Every sentence and every page is tickle your tummy funny. Voinovich channels Gogol's anti-hero Chichikov in Chonkin, a petty soldier sent to guard a broken down airplane in the middle of nowhere. His troubles start with a cow... and get more and more ridiculous!

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was brilliant and hilarious.

One of the best satires of Russian life under Stalin and really made fun of his cult of personality in a way that is unmatched.

Definitely going to track down Book 2 and perhaps Book 3.

Recommended for those who have a vague sense of Stalin's collectivization ideals and for those who like Vonnegut.

[Michael Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vladimir Voinovich's Chonkin is a good foray into the Russian muzhik's (commoner's) psyche. Born and raised a farmer in Stalin's time, Ivan gets called to the army, where he embarks first unbeknowingly then unwillingly into an adventure that will change (spoiler: and end) his life. Chronicling this journey, the author gets to talk about the "joys" of real-Communism: indoctrination of simple people who can barely speak (not to mention write), formation of cliques for sharing the little local power, propagation of meaningless orders from the top, the "wireless phone"---lossy or faulty transmission of messages through human chains---, obliteration of personal opinion, etc. Unlike Solzhenitsyn, Voinovich adopts a cynical, tragicomical tone; thus, this story can be seen as a Russian take on Jaroslav Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War. Poorly educated and easily dumbfounded, Chonkin is perhaps a less lovable character than Svejk; it is perhaps because of this that Voinovich makes his story take surreal and oneiric turns. What I disliked about this work is the rather thin story---much thinner than in Moscow 2042, by the same author---, the lack of powerful characters---a characteristic of Voinovich's work, as far as I can tell---, and the often rough wording---Voinovich is no Russian classic. Overall, a nice read but overall not inspiring.

[Chuck LoPresti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Private Chonkin is breezy and hilarious read about a quixotic failure of a hero that serves as a compendium of communist dunderheads, snollygosters, lickspittles, boozers and bedpressers. A more complete catalog of nincompoopery – I am not familiar with. Voinovich’s piss-take on communist society should leave no attentive reader with a straight face. There’s little gravity in the style of Voinovich’s writing as he’s obviously focused on mockery. But style aside – unseating the power of communist oppression shouldn't be a laughing matter but something tells me that the day Voinovich learned of his loss of Russian citizenship there was probably more than a few laughs in his house. The character development is a bit sparse around the periphery but that’s not an impediment to the appreciation of this brief read. The prose is breezy but not plain and anything not serving to advocate laughter is presented in almost apologetic tones. Judgment and mockery are doled out in equal measures and for a change it’s only the two main women – Chonkins’ love and a home brewing granny that are both pained in mainly positive tones but even their graces pale in comparison to a pig and a horse.
So add Gogol’s wit, Swift’s social criticism, Zoschenko’s humor in the face of oppression that is shared by Orkeny and you’ll get something very much like Voinovich. V. should be sainted for his assistance in bringing Grossman’s Life and Fate to print and his sense of humor places him properly at the right hand of Groucho. I've seen some less than glowing reviews of this book and I’m not sure who wouldn't appreciate this other than those that might have approached it by force or without any appreciation of political satire. Concise, hilarious and loads of fun – this qualifies as a classic in my opinion at least. This shares a space on my shelf next to Moscow to the End of the Line as the most hilariously entertaining Russian books I've read. One spoiler: do not drink every home brew you are offered.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t laugh until the Molotov cocktails started flying. This book probably wouldn’t mean anything to those who don’t know the history of the USSR. The absurdity of life brilliantly portrayed in this book is founded on the evil reality of the socialist system. Innocent people executed, anonymous condemnation to “The Institution”, paranoia, redistribution of possessions of anyone who has more than someone else. What I had on my mind throughout was the realization that few today understand the scourge of this system of government. In fact, we find many now treating “communists” as cute, unique, interesting. Today Cuba is chic, Venezuela is courageous, China should be emulated. Of course, those advocating don’t intend to live there.

Didn’t find this book as humorous as I expected. But there were some good lines. Perfect description of the party boss:

He was always oppressed by freedom of choice. He suffered unbearably when pondering which shirt to wear that day, the green or the blue, or which boots, the old or the new.

A common warning to the kolkhoz chairmen by the District Commissioner:

”Remember, you are under constant surveillance.”

Chilling to think that how true this warning would be if they had the technology we have today.

3 Stars

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin is perhaps the funniest book I have read all year. It tells the tale of a simpleton Russian soldier named Ivan Chonkin who is sent to guard a plane that came down in the village of Krasnoye. As the Germans picked this time to invade Russia, Chonkin is forgotten. He begins a relationship with the local postmistress and all seems well...

...until his neighbor whose plants were destroyed by the postmistress's cow turns him in as a deserter. A detachment of NKVD -- the predecessors of the KGB -- is sent to arrest him, and is arrested in turn by Chonkin. More and more people from headquarters start showing up.

The end is a hilarious confrontation when the imprisoned NKVD officer is in turn imprisoned by the Russian army, who mistake him for a German. The NKVD officer plays along, yelling "Heil Hitler! Stalin kaputt!"

Vladimir Voinovich has, in Chonkin created a classic of humor comparable to Hasek's The Good Soldier Svejk. In many ways, Voinovich's novel is even better.

[Érika · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's one of the funniest and wittiest books I've ever read!

[Robyn Latchford · Rating 5 out of 5]

A witty, fun Soviet Satire. Only 311 pages and not too intimidating, I inhaled this book and enjoyed it a lot. If you like The Master and Margarita you will also like this book!

[Баясгалан Батсуурь · Rating 4 out of 5]

Сталин 1956 онд үхсэн. Харин цэрэг Чонкины намтар 1961-1963 рны хооронд бичигдсэн гэхээр Сталины тахин шүтэгдэлийг эсэргүүцэн гарч ирсэн Хрушевийн үеийн зохиол юм уу даа. Сталины үед бол эхний догол мөрөөсөө л зохиогчоо цаазлуулах ялд унагачих бүрэн чадалтай энэ хоржоонт романыг Войнович бичиж зүрхэлсэн нь нэгт Сталин үхсэн, хоёрт Хрушев Сталиныг хурцаар шүүмжилж гарч ирснийх болов уу. Тиймдээ ч нөхөр Сталиныг гахай болгож махыг нь зооглох, эсвэл эм хүн, ижил хүйстэн болгох зэрэг аймшиггүй бичлэгүүд амилсан биз. Гэвч Сталиныг егөөдсөн Войновичийн хурц бичлэг дотор коммунистуудыг хонгоноос нь ирсэн, социалист нийгмийн алдаа дутагдлыг илчилсэн хур санаа явж буй. "Хурал цуглаан гэдэг бүгдээрээ нэг дор цуглаад зарим нь бодож буйгаа хэлэхгүй байх, зарим нь хэлж буйгаа бодохгүй ярихын нэр" гэдэг ч юм уу. Ухаалаг, цэцэн, элэг хөшим роман байлаа. Ж.Нэргүйн монгол орчуулга супер.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Private Chonkin has frequently been called the Schweik of Stalinist Russia. Like Schweik he uses his extraordinary stupidity to outwit his persecutors. Unfortunately, for Chonkin Stalin's communist apparatchiks were far more skilled persecutors than Franz Joseph's Imperial bureaucrats. Whereas Schweik survives and prospers, Chonkin inevitably is dispatched to the Gulag.

Gogol and Bulgakov are the only two Russian writers that I am aware of who possess the same level of talent in comic writing as Voinovich. This book is great fun and highly recommended for anyone who has an interest in Stalin's Russia.

[Vilis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tik asu satīru par 2. pasaules karu vēl nebiju lasījis. Smieklu koeficients arī labs, lai gan diezgan liela daļa grāmatas ir atkāpes dažādās smieklīguma/sasaistes pakāpēs. Uzzināju arī, kāpēc zirgi nekļuva par cilvēkiem.

[Kirkirvarpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ne pirma pažintis su šiuo rašytojų. Prieš kokius 15 metų teko klausyti audioknygos Maskva 2042. Nepamenu jau tiksliai, kaip rutuliojasi įvykiai toje satyrinėje antiutopijoje, bet knyga pasirodė labai drąsi ir paliko gerą įspūdį.
Nors liko geri prisiminimai, bet nesitikėjau, kad ir ši knyga vėl taip pat lengvai pagaus savo stiliumi. Labai gyva kalba ir smagus dėstymas, lyg knyga būtų parašyta paaugliams. Tik va, vidinė teksto pusė labai nepaaugliška. Beveik kiekvienoje pastraipoje kandama santvarkai, kolūkiams, kariuomenei, slaptosioms tarnyboms ir net draugui Stalinui. Viskam, su kuo mes siejam Sovietų Sąjungą.
Na ir pagrindinis veikėjas, kareivukas Čonkinas. Visai neatitinka pasitempusio tautos gynėjo įvaizdžio. Pasmurgęs kareivukas. Lyg ir svajojantis apie aukštą skrydi, bet net per karą atsiduriantis toli nuo karinių veiksmų, mažame kaimelyje šalies gilumoje. Nežinau, kaip būsimose knygose - Čonkino nuotykių yra ir daugiau - bet šioje didelių žygių jis nenuveikia. O jei ir nuveikia, tai visa tai jam gaunasi netyčia, per klaidą. Ne vieną situacija priverčia šyptelti. Apskritai, stilius ir lengvumas yra dideli šios knygos pliusai.
Žinau, kad knyga yra lyginama su Šauniojo kareivio Šveiko nuotykiais, bet aš lyginti jų negaliu, nes Hašeko romano iki šiol neteko skaityti

[Max Heimowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

We usually react squeamishly to shit as if it were something bad. But if we look into the matter we see that it could be the most valuable substance on earth, because all life comes from shit and returns to shit

Absolutely bonkers and I loved it. Everything is a misunderstanding and that just makes it so much more funny. Nyura having intimate relations with her hog, Chonkin's dream sequence of the hog-wedding, naked generals and Stalin being served as food, forcing him to grunt like a pig, horse acting like men, Russian comrades speaking German, sex... I don't know. Voinovich thought of everything. And it was incredible. Absurd. A wild-ride. And I'd do it all again.

There was a scrap of paper mashed to the ground beneath the horse's hoof. Seized by a premonition of something extraordinary, Gladishev grabbed the piece of paper, brought it up close to his eyes, and froze, dumbfounded.

In spite of the gathering dusk and his none-too-sharp eyesight, the born breeder was able to make out the large wavering script beneath the caked-on mud and blood-stains: "If I perish, I ask to be considered a Communist."

"Good Lord!" shrieked Gladishev, and for the first time in many years, he crossed himself.

[César Carranza · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me pareció bien, pero creo que el error fue mío, esperaba mucho de él, es una novela que inició muy bien, muy divertida, pero fue decayendo, creo que Chonkin es un poco irritante, se encuentra en un límite entre la estupidez y la astucia, pero no a la manera de Svejk (personaje con el que es comparado) que lleva al limite la obediencia militar pasando por el ridículo, mas bien es un lento, sin mucha gracias y en algunos puntos un poco pretencioso, creo le falta consistencia a nuestro héroe, por otro lado creo que como sátira me parece le hizo falta mordacidad, en fin, no es mala, pero no creo que sea un gran libro.

[Núria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Si entro en una librería y veo un libro cuyo autor tiene un exótico apellido ruso que no he oído en mi vida podéis estar seguros que acabaré sucumbiendo. Leo la contraportada. Pero esto es un puro trámite. Sé que diga lo que diga la contraportada acabaré comprándolo. Y es que en esta ocasión no sólo el autor tenía un exótico nombre ruso, sino que encima en el título había otro: 'Vida e insólitas aventuras del soldado Iván Chonkin'. Ivan Chonkin. Vladímir Voinóvich. ¿No me digáis que no suena bien, eh?

[Kobe Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book with a lot of cool moments like people having dreams about animals turning into people, the guy who was crossbreeding potatoes and tomatoes and made manure vodka, the old Jewish guy whose last name was Stalin, etc

[María Carpio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una deliciosa y perfectamente escrita sátira sobre el Ejército ruso durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, aunque hay poco de guerra y mucho de absurdo. Ambientada en un koljós, esta novela tiene una narrativa brillante y fluida, muy de acuerdo a la tradición de excelentes narradores rusos.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful satire on Russian communist society, set at the start of WW2, seeing the might of the Stalinist war machine (such as it was!) pitted against one man (Chonkin) and his girlfriend (Nyura). Just a joy to read, as storytelling, characterisation and humour all blend perfectly.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

[Lauri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algul tundus täiesti mõttetu, kuigi tuleb tunnistada, väga ladusalt kirja pandud sõnamulinana. Mida aga edasi seda huvitamaks see jutuveeretamine muutus ja olgugi et väljareklaamitud "vene Švejkist" oli asi ikka väga kaugel, hakkas üha enam ja enam halastamatut ja varjamatut antisovetšinat välja joonistuma. Irvitati kõige üle, niivõrd kuivõrd 1941. aastal kui kogu hiigelriik ägises NKVD raudses haardes üldse millegi üle irvitada sai. Aga sai, näiteks kui umbes kolmveerand raamatust oli mul parimal juhul kerge poolmuie, siis lõpuosas näiteks õnnetu kapten Miljaga oma "Heil, tovaarišš Hitler'iga" pani ikka juba laginal naerma.
Algul mõtlesin et loen läbi, võtan teadmiseks ja unustan, aga vaevalt läbi saadud kui juba sai raamatukogust just-just ilmunud teine osa laenutatud. Eks seegi näita miskit. Tugev "neli".

[Juan Hidalgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una estupenda historia en la que el soldado Iván Chonkin resulta que no es tan tonto como parecía en principio, y cuyas peripecias nos harán sonreír y hasta carcajearnos en alguna ocasión, al tropezar con la inefable burocracia rusa y la rigidez del sistema stalinista.

A su autor, este libro le supuso la expulsión de la sociedad de escritores de la Unión Soviética y más tarde la pérdida de su nacionalidad, y es que, aunque habían transcurrido 21 años desde la desaparición de Iosef Stalin, criticarle a él o al régimen que encabezaba seguía teniendo sus riesgos, aunque tales ataques estuviesen revestidos de ironía y humor.

[Vitaly Belman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is among the funniest books I've read. You do need some background knowledge about the political situation of Russia in 1940 to appreciate the humor, but if you have general interest and understanding of the Soviet era, I recommend this book highly. As a comparison, to a much more popular "12 chairs" book, I found this one a lot funnier.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this book browsing around Goodreads, and thought it sounded alright. In fact, it's more than alright, it's a classic of the ridiculous humour found in the best East European novels. The Red Army doesn't come out of it very well, so it's no surprise it wasn't published in the USSR! I'll say no more, to avoid spoiling the denouement for prospective readers! Strongly recommended!