Monumental PropagandaFrom Vladimir Voinovich, one of the great satirists of contemporary Russian literature, comes a new comic novel about the absurdity of politics and the place of the individual in the sweep of human events. Monumental Propaganda, Voinovich’s first novel in twelve years, centers on Aglaya Stepanovna Revkina, a true believer in Stalin, who finds herself bewildered and beleaguered in the relative openness of the Khrushchev era. She believes her greatest achievement was to have browbeaten her community into building an iron statue of the supreme leader, which she moves into her apartment after his death. And despite the ebb and flow of political ideology in her provincial town, she stubbornly, and at all costs, centers her life on her private icon. Voinovich’s humanely comic vision has never been sharper than it is in this hilarious but deeply moving tale–equally all-seeing about Stalinism, the era of Khrushchev, and glasnost in the final years of Soviet rule. The New York Times Book Review called his classic work, The Life & Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, “a masterpiece of a new form–socialist surrealism . . . the Soviet Catch-22 written by a latter-day Gogol." In Monumental Propaganda we have the welcome return of a truly singular voice in world literature. |
Contents
Section 19 | 233 |
Section 20 | 242 |
Section 21 | 257 |
Section 22 | 267 |
Section 23 | 271 |
Section 24 | 290 |
Section 25 | 295 |
Section 26 | 302 |
Section 9 | 89 |
Section 10 | 113 |
Section 11 | 121 |
Section 12 | 151 |
Section 13 | 163 |
Section 14 | 166 |
Section 15 | 189 |
Section 16 | 190 |
Section 17 | 202 |
Section 18 | 224 |
Section 27 | 303 |
Section 28 | 321 |
Section 29 | 325 |
Section 30 | 335 |
Section 31 | 345 |
Section 32 | 359 |
Section 33 | 367 |
Section 34 | 369 |
Section 35 | 371 |
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Common terms and phrases
Admiral Aglaya asked Aglaya Stepanovna already Andrei Antonina began bottle Brezhnev Burdalakov called camp collective farm committee communist Comrade Revkina Comrade Stalin Cossack course CPSU district Party Divanich Dolgov donna è mobile door drink enemy everything eyes face feeling front Fyodor Fyodorovich Gala gave Georgii Zhukov glance glass Glukhov granny Gravalya hand happened head Ilich imagine immediately Ivan Kashlyaev Komsomol Korotyshkin Lenin listened live looked Marat Mark Semyonovich monument Moscow Nechaev never newspaper nomenklatura Ogorodov opened pedestal person Porosyaninov portrait Raspadov realized remember Revkina Roof rubles samizdat Saraev SCOSWO Seryoga Shaleiko shoulder shouted Shubkin Shurochka sitting smoke Sochi someone Soviet standing station statue stood stopped street suddenly tell there's things thought told took turned Vanka Vladimir Ilich Lenin vodka voice walked wanted What's window woman words young Zherdyk Zoya