Pretender to the Throne

This hilarious novel follows the continuing adventures of the simple peasant Ivan Chonkin, who has been arrested as a traitor to the motherland after spending World War II happily tending a garden. Lacking evidence against him, the bumbling bureaucrats base their case on a rumor in his home village that he is the illegitimate son of a prince. The comic case of mistaken identity escalates as they accuse this unlikely prince of working in league with Hitler to restore the monarchy. In this sequel to The Extraordinary Life and Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, Voinovich ridicules everything that was sacred in the Soviet Union - including the army, the justice system, the press, and Stalin - in a refreshing combination of dissident conscience and universal humor.