Vladimir Voinovich

Early life

Voinovich was born in Stalinabad, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union. His father Nikolai Pavlovich Voinovich (1905—1987) was a journalist of Serbian descent who worked as an editor in local newspapers; his ancestors moved to the Russian Empire during the 19th century. Vladimir Voinovich also states that his father belonged to the 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. His mother Roza Klementievna (born Revekka Kolmanovna) Goykhman (1908—1978) was of Jewish descent. She started as a journalist, working with her husband, but later became a teacher of mathematics.

In 1936 Voinovich's father was arrested on the allegation of anti-Soviet agitation and spent five years in prison. He was set free in 1941. The family then moved to their relatives in Zaporozhye, but with the start of the Great Patriotic War Nikolai Voinovich was sent to the front line. The rest of the family was evacuated several times following the Nazi occupation, living in various Russian regions. In 1945 they returned to Zaporozhye where Vladimir Voinovich finished a vocational school. Between 1951 and 1955 he did peacetime service in the Soviet Army. During that time he started publishing his poetry in the army newspaper.

Following the demobilization Voinovich moved to Moscow and tried to enter the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute (also known as Litinstitute). After a failed attempt he entered the Moscow Krupskaya Pedagogical Institute, the faculty of history. He studied for a year and a half and was suggested then to move to Kazakhstan as part of the Virgin Lands Campaign. According to Voinovich, he didn't plan to, yet decided to accept the offer after one of the students made public their private conversation where Voinovich heavily criticized the Soviet kolkhoz system. He spent some time in Kazakhstan, «seeking inspiration», and on his return to Moscow started working on his first novel.

Career

Voinovich is famous for his satirical fiction, but also for writing some poetry. While working for Moscow radio in the early 1960s, he produced the lyrics for the cosmonauts' anthem, Fourteen Minutes To Lift-off ("14 минут до старта").

At the outset of the Brezhnev stagnation period, Voinovich's writings stopped being published in the USSR, but became very popular in samizdat and in the West. In 1974, because of his writing and his participation in the human rights movement, Voinovich was excluded from the Soviet Writers' Union. His telephone line was cut off in 1976 and he and his family were forced to emigrate in 1980. He settled in Munich, West Germany and worked for Radio Liberty.

Voinovich helped publish Vasily Grossman's famous novel Life and Fate by smuggling photo films secretly taken by Andrei Sakharov.

Mikhail Gorbachev restored his Soviet citizenship in 1990 and since then the writer spends most of his time in the new Russia.

Literary work

The first and second parts of his 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. "Chonkin" is now a widely known figure in Russian popular culture and the book was also made into a film by the Czech director Jiří Menzel. Chonkin is often referred to as "the Russian Švejk". 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.

In 1986 he wrote a dystopian novel, Moscow 2042 (published 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. A Slavophile, Sim Karnavalov (apparently inspired by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), eventually overthrows the Party and enters Moscow on a white horse.

Voinovich's other novels have also won acclaim. His The Ivankiad concerns a writer trying to get an apartment in the bureaucratic clog of the Soviet system. 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.

Public activism

On February 25, 2015, Voinovich published an "Open Letter from Vladimir Voinovich to the President of Russia," in which he concerned himself with the impending death of Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko in a Russian prison due to a hunger strike. In this letter, he advised President Putin that allowing the young Ukrainian heroine to die might have a greater effect on world opinion than the annexation of Crimea and the war in the Donbass. In the event of her death, he advised the Russian president to avoid public appearances in Western capitals since "crowds of people will greet you with insulting cries and hurl foul-smelling things at you, while Savchenko’s name will be known everywhere." He concluded the letter with the words, "Judging by the absurdity of the charges laid against her, she should simply be released."

Other work

Since 1995 he has ventured into graphic arts and sells his paintings in Russian galleries and on the Web.

Awards and honors

Voinovich has won many international awards and honor titles, including State Prize of the Russian Federation (2000), Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer's Civic Courage (2002), among others.

Personal life

Voinovich has been 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.. His second wife was Irina Danilovna Braude (1938—2004). They had one daughter Olga Voinovich (born 1973), a German writer. Following Irina's death in 2004 Voinovich married Svetlana Yakovlevna Kolesnichenko (née Lianozova), an entrepreneur, also a widow of the Russian journalist Tomas Kolesnichenko. They currently live in Moscow.

Filmography