SOURCE: A review of Pretendent na prestol, in World Literature Today, Vol. 55, No. 3, Summer, 1981, pp. 492–93.

In the following review, Milivojevic commends the satirical achievement of Pretender to the Throne.

Pretendent na prestol (Pretender to the Throne) is a sequel to The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (1975; see WLT 52:4, pp. 544-50), and the two works are both part of what is eventually intended to be a trilogy describing the World War II period in the Soviet Union, especially the behavior and the customs of the Russian political bureaucracy as well as the fate of innocent individuals who become its victims. There are, however, differences of emphasis: Chonkin is a satire on the Soviet army, whereas Pretendent takes aim at the KGB and the judicial system. It is again that naïve and simple Private Chonkin who is their victim.

In Pretendent Chonkin becomes a leader of...