Vladimir Voinovich

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person Vladimir Nikolayevich Voinovich (Template:Langx; 26 September 1932 – 27 July 2018) was a Russian writer and former Soviet dissident, and the "first genuine comic writer" produced by the Soviet system.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Among his most well-known works are the satirical epic The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin and the dystopian Moscow 2042. He was forced into exile and stripped of his citizenship by Soviet authorities in 1980 but later rehabilitated and moved back to Moscow in 1990. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he continued to be an outspoken critic of Russian politics under the rule of Vladimir Putin.

Biography

Early life

Voinovich was born in Stalinabad, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union.<ref name=rferlobituary>Template:Cite web</ref> According to himself, his father was of Serbian descent and a translator of Serbian literature, and his mother was of Jewish descent.<ref name=wp80s>Template:Cite news</ref> Vladimir Voinovich claimed that his father belonged to the Serbian Vojnović noble family, although this is solely based on his surname and the book by the Yugoslavian writer Vidak Vujnovic Vojinovici i Vujinovici od srednjeg veka do danas (1985) which he received as a gift from the author during his stay in Germany.<ref name='famhist'>Vladimir Voinovich. Parents, childhood, Khujand, father returned (in Russian). From the autobiography Self-portrait: Novel of My Life, Template:ISBN</ref>

In 1936 Voinovich's father was arrested on the allegation of anti-Soviet agitation and spent five years in labor camps.<ref name=rferlobituary/>

Voinovich began his studies in Moscow and tried to enter the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. After a failed attempt he entered the Moscow Krupskaya Pedagogical Institute, the faculty of history.<ref>Vladimir Voinovich. Seizure of Moscow (in Russian). From the autobiography Self-portrait: Novel of My Life, Template:ISBN</ref> According to his autobiography, he spent some time in Kazakhstan, "seeking inspiration", and on his return to Moscow started working on his first novel.<ref>Vladimir Voinovich. At the Virgin Land (in Russian). From the autobiography Self-portrait: Novel of My Life, Template:ISBN</ref>

Literary debut and dissidence

His earliest published books were We Live Here and I Want To Be Honest.<ref name=guardian>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1969 he published the first part of The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, a satirical novel about a Russian soldier during World War II. A second part was published in 1971.<ref name=rferlobituary/> At the outset of the Brezhnev stagnation period, Voinovich's writings stopped being published in the USSR, but continued publishing in samizdat, hand-written copies<ref name=newsofdeath>Template:Cite web</ref> and in the West. In 1974, the authorities began a systematic harassment of Voinovich due to his writing and his political attitude.<ref name=rferlobituary/> Voinovich was excluded from the Soviet Writers' Union the same year.<ref name=guardian/> According to Voinovich, in 1975 an attempt to poison him was made by the KGB.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

His telephone line was cut off in 1976. He and his family were forced to emigrate in 1980, being stripped of his citizenship.<ref name=rferlobituary/> He settled in Munich, West Germany after being invited by the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.<ref name=guardian/> For a while he worked for Radio Liberty.<ref name=rferlobituary/> Voinovich helped publish Vasily Grossman's famous novel Life and Fate by smuggling photo films secretly taken by Andrei Sakharov. In 1987, he published the second of his arguably most well-known works, Moscow 2042. Mikhail Gorbachev restored his Soviet citizenship in 1990 and he subsequently moved back to Russia.<ref name=rferlobituary/>

His literary agent was American attorney Leonard W. Schroeter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Public activism in Russia

Voinovich continued to voice his political convictions also after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In 2001 Voinovich signed an open letter expressing support to the NTV channel, and in 2003 a letter against the Second Chechen War.<ref>A letter of prominent members of science, culture and politics in defence of NTV at NEWSru, 28 March 2001 (in Russian)</ref><ref>Let's stop the Chechen War together Template:Webarchive at Novaya Gazeta № 20 March 2003 (in Russian)</ref> On 25 February 2015 he published an "Open Letter from Vladimir Voinovich to the President of Russia" in which he asked Putin to release the Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko who went on a hunger strike. He stated that her death might have an even greater effect on the world's opinion than the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In a 2015 interview with The Daily Beast, Voinovich said that "In some ways, it is worse today" than during the Soviet era and that "the freedoms we have are just leftovers."<ref name=dailybeast>Template:Cite news</ref>

In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2017, Voinovich also voiced criticism of President Putin, saying that Putin had turned the country in a more conservative direction at the expense of politics "oriented toward the future."<ref name=rferflinterview>Template:Cite web</ref> He repeated his opinion that the political situation in Russia today is comparable to the 1970s in the Soviet Union. "They are breaking up demonstrations. They are throwing people in prison on basically the same charges. True, they aren't giving seven-year sentences, but rather two. And now they have begun driving people out of the country", he noted.<ref name=rferflinterview/>

Personal life

Voinovich was married three times. Between 1957 and 1964 he was married to Valentina Vasilievna Boltushkina (1929—1988). Together they had two children: daughter Marina Voinovich (1958—2006) and son Pavel Voinovich (born 1962), also a Russian writer and publicist, author of historical novels.<ref>Voinovich Pavel Vladimirovich at the Eksmo official website (in Russian)</ref> His second wife was Irina Danilovna Braude (1938—2004). They had one daughter Olga Voinovich (born 1973), a German writer.<ref>Interview with Vladimir and Olga Voinovich at Echo of Moscow, 23 September 2012 (in Russian)</ref> Following Irina's death in 2004 Voinovich married Svetlana Yakovlevna Kolesnichenko (née Lianozova), an entrepreneur, also a widow of the Russian journalist Tomas Kolesnichenko.<ref>Vladimir Voinovich interview to Dmitry Gordon, 27 May 2016 (in Russian)</ref> They lived in Moscow.

He was a member of the board of trustees of the Vera hospice.<ref>Board of trustees at the official Vera site (in Russian)</ref>

Vladimir Voinovich died on the night of 27 July 2018 of a heart attack.<ref name=newsofdeath/>

Work

The first and second parts of his epic magnum opus The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin ("Жизнь и необычайные приключения солдата Ивана Чонкина") are set in the Red Army during World War II, satirically exposing the daily absurdities of the totalitarian regime.<ref name=dailybeast/> "Chonkin" is now a widely known figure in Russian popular culture. The book was also made into a film by the Czech director Jiří Menzel. Many have pointed out the similarities between the story about Chonkin and The Good Soldier Švejk.<ref name=petro>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The third part of the novel was published in 2007. Not as well known so far as the previous two parts, it portrays the post-War life of the characters until the present, including Chonkin's involuntary emigration to the USA. Much attention is also paid to the figures of Lavrentiy Beria and Joseph Stalin, the latter being mockingly depicted as a son of Nikolai Przhevalsky and a Przewalski's horse. According to the author, the writing of the whole novel took him almost fifty years. The novel has been described as a Soviet Catch-22.<ref name=dailybeast/>

In 1986 he wrote a dystopian novel, Moscow 2042 (published in 1987). In this novel, Voinovich portrayed a Russia ruled by the "Communist Party of State Security" combining the KGB, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist Party. This party is led by a KGB general Bukashev (the name means "the bug") who meets the main character of the novel in Germany. Voinovich uses the motif of Coprophagia to criticize the failure of communist food policies.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A Slavophile, Sim Karnavalov (apparently inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), eventually overthrows the Party and enters Moscow on a white horse.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The similarities between the plot of the book and the actual political developments in Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union have been noted by several observers.<ref name=dailybeast/>

Voinovich's other novels have also won acclaim. The Fur Hat is a satire alluding to Gogol's Overcoat. His Monumental Propaganda is a stinging critique of post-Communist Russia, a story that shows the author's opinion that Russians haven't changed much since the days of Joseph Stalin. Monumental Propaganda has been described as "an illuminating comment on the persistence of false idols and historical delusions".<ref name=washingtonpost>Template:Cite news</ref>

His darkly humorous memoir The Ivankiad tells the true story of his attempt to get an upgraded apartment in the bureaucratic clog of the Soviet system.<ref name=dailybeast/>

In 2002 he published a controversial book of memoirs A Portrait Against the Background of a Myth, highly critical of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Voinovich accused him of creating a cult around himself, of poor writing skills and his alleged antisemitism, among other things. The book received a mixed reaction. Yuri Semenov supported the point regarding "Solzhenitsyn's continuous degradation" as a writer, but also criticized Voinovich for simultaneously "glorifying himself and his books".<ref>Yuri Semenov. Ideological Fashion in Science and Skepticism article from Scepsis №2, Winter 2003 Template:ISSN (in Russian)</ref>

Liza Novikova of Kommersant compared the book to performance art, suggesting that "the author only helps creating the very same myth by trying to prove that Solzhenitsyn doesn't match the rank of a great writer".<ref>Liza Novikova. This Week's Books article from Kommersant №90, 29 May 2002 (in Russian)</ref> The book was widely seen as a reaction to Solzhenitsyn's two-volume historical work Two Hundred Years Together that was published in 2001–2002 and dedicated to the history of Jews in Russia and frequently regarded as antisemitic. Voinovich, however, said that he had started the work on his book before Two Hundred Years Together was even published and that he didn't have the patience to read it to the end.<ref>Vladimir Voinovich. Solzhenitsyn Against the Background of Myths interview at Argumenty i Fakty № 28, 10 July 2002 (in Russian)</ref>

He published his memoirs in 2010.<ref name=dailybeast/>

Awards and honors

File:Vladimir Putin 12 June 2001-4.jpg
Russian President Vladimir Putin presents Voinovich with the State Prize of the Russian Federation on 12 June 2001. The prize was awarded for the book Monumental propaganda, about Neo-Stalinist legacy sitting in the subconscious of Russian citizens

Voinovich was awarded the State Prize of the Russian Federation for 2000, for his book "Monumental propaganda" about Soviet Neo-Stalinist legacy sitting in the subconscious of almost every citizen of the "free Russia".<ref name=newsofdeath/> He also received Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage (2002).<ref name=rferlobituary/>

Bibliography

Stories and novels

Articles and interviews

Further reading

References

Template:Reflist

Template:Commons category

Template:Soviet dissidents Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Vladimir_Voinovich&oldid=504046"