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Monumental Propaganda
From 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 beleagu...more
Monumental Propaganda, Voinovich’s first novel in twelve years, centers on Aglaya Stepanovna Revkina, a true believer in Stalin, who finds herself bewildered and beleagu...more
Hardcover, 384 pages
Published
December 18th 2007
by Alfred A. Knopf
(first published 2000)
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Once more, Voinovich demonstrates that he's the heir to the fine tradition of Russian satire. The book spans a period from the disavowal of Stalin up through the present time...since Voinovich's theme is that the true nature of the people never really changes, no matter how much history sweeps by.
He does this by painting the portrait of Aglaya Stepanovna, a confirmed Stalinist. Aglaya's unchanging devotion to Stalin, and specifically to an iron statue of Stalin (the "Monumenta...more
He does this by painting the portrait of Aglaya Stepanovna, a confirmed Stalinist. Aglaya's unchanging devotion to Stalin, and specifically to an iron statue of Stalin (the "Monumenta...more
Hah! What a delicious book about life in the USSR from Kruschev to perestroika. Main character is a wonderful portrait of a woman who has spent her early years as a partisan and party member. Her staunch pro-Stalinist sympathies put her at odds with the daily rewriting of Soviet history. The characters who live in her small town are delightfully drawn. Everyone is full of the contradictions of real people, and the historical details of Soviet life are wonderfully illuminating. The machinations i...more
I love the central premise of this book. Aglaya Stepanovna Revkina is a true-believing Stalinist who commissions a statue of Stalin to stand in the square of her town. The statue is widely admired as a masterpiece, but then Stalin dies and, soon after, is repudiated by the Party. The statue is removed and is destined to be melted down. But Revkina rescues it and installs it in her own living room.
Revkina finds herself in an impossible dilemma. She's a true-believer in Stalin and a tr...more
Revkina finds herself in an impossible dilemma. She's a true-believer in Stalin and a tr...more
Aglaya Stepanovna Revkina is a confirmed Stalinist, loving the deceased leader with a passion that crosses the line of eroticism, far greater than any love she ever felt for the man she married and later killed in the midst of a partisan act of terrorism. When Khrushchev takes power and denounces Stalin and his cult of personality, Aglaya refuses to ride the wave of conformity that tries to drown her, going so far as to install the city’s discarded 8-foot statue of Lenin in her crumbling apartm...more
i was just reminded of this book. i read it a few years ago for a history class. i think i've said this before, but this kind of book i think i'm predestined to enjoy. it's about one person's experience of the tragedy and absurdity of grand events in history and a legendary political regime. i'm not expressing this very well right now, but that kind of book, whether fiction or non-fiction, i always seem to love.
You have a woman who believes in and loves Stalin...
Great surreal satire on the fall of the Soviet Union and the communist dream. A party functionary keeps a (removed) statue of Stalin in her flat- he speaks to her in the subconscious, madness ensues.
Monumental Propaganda was one of my favorite books of 2006. Funny, biting and bittersweet it's a great satire of recent Soviet/Russian history with a great leading lady, the unlikely Aglaya. Loved it!
Highly amusing look at life in post-Communist Russia; satirical, exaggerated, absurd -- good. Recommended to anyone who finds world news appalling but amusing/bemusing.
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Vladimir Voinovich (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. ...more
More about Vladimir Voinovich...
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. ...more
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