Kirza

9 hrs. 38 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Chekunov Vadim

Narrator Maxim Suslov

Description

Vadim Chekunov gained fame thanks to the book “Kirza,” which once made it into the long list of the “Russian Booker” award. The author was born in 1970 into a family of philologists. He spent his childhood in Cuba, from where his family later returned to the Soviet Union. Vadim too chose a path of philology, but he was expelled from university and, in 1990, was drafted into the army.

It was exactly his urgent service that became the source of inspiration for writing “Kirza”—the novel is, to a large extent, autobiographical. People like Zamyatin and Kuprin wrote about problems of the inner atmosphere in peacetime armies and about its vices long ago, and compulsory service in the late Soviet era and in Russia’s “wild nineties” became a subject of satire many times over. Not only in literature: just think of the famous film “DMB.”

Vadim Chekunov’s book, combining humor and tragicomedy, became very popular among those who served during that historical period. The author has repeatedly said that the future belongs to professional contract armies—and that only a change in how the armed forces are staffed, along with reforms, can raise their prestige. And in many ways he was right, because reforms in the army were soon carried out, and now it is different.

But everyone who served during that time will find it interesting to compare their own memories and impressions with what the author writes about. Listen to this story in audiobook form!