Summary
Wladimir Kaminer: Military Rock
Year 1967. it is fateful for the Soviet Union: exactly fifty years have passed since the October Revolution and a great celebration is being prepared everywhere in the country, and just then the light of day sees the light of day a boy who will stop at nothing to shake the glorious republic from the foundations. From an early age, young Wladimir Kaminer has been at war with the authorities; he is always ready for anything, but not to adapt. Already at school as an "official political informer", he invents hair-raising daily news, and later as an intern in the theater he undermines entire plays. But all this is nothing compared to his subversive activities in the army, where this anarchic idler will one day end up. Here, unsuspectingly, they hand him the honorary position of "executive organizer of entertainment", and it should not be surprising that everything turns upside down after that. It's certainly surprising that the Soviet Union didn't fall apart much earlier...
Military Rock is a wonderful depiction of Kaminer's growing up in Russia in the 70s and 80s and an extremely entertaining portrait of a hitherto almost unknown side of Russian society: a young, subversive generation looking for fun and excitement in a sterile and hostile environment. Translated into Italian, French, Hungarian, Estonian, Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Korean.
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