THE NAKED PIONEER GIRL

Over-the-top first novel from Russia that butchers an entire stockyard full of sacred communist cows in its account of the military and erotic exploits of a 15-year-old girl during the Siege of Leningrad.

Fifteen years ago a publication like this would have been printed on bootleg mimeographs and probably have earned its author a nice long stay in some Siberian gulag. Today, however, it seems more like an exercise in cheap laughs. There isn’t much of a story—at least not much of a coherent one. Our heroine is the dauntless Maria “Midge” Mukhina, a teenaged Young Pioneer (the Soviet equivalent of the Hitler Youth) who longs so desperately to serve in the Great Patriotic War (WWII) that she forges the necessary papers and enlists as a machine-gunner in the Red Army. Midge is the embodiment of all the socialist virtues extolled in the propaganda pieces of the time: daring, selfless, obedient, and absolutely confident in the leadership of Comrade Stalin. So zealous is she for the defense and triumph of the People’s Revolution that she’s honored by the great Marshall Zhukov, the Defender of Moscow, with a secret mission that will make her a Hero of the Soviet Union—posthumously, of course. How has Midge earned such a commission? On her back, mostly, attending to the needs of all the men in her regiment (officers getting priority, naturally) night after night for the last several years. But now Midge’s nighttime duties take on a new form, since she has found a way to leave her body and fly, stark-naked, through the skies over Leningrad each night. Naturally, this strikes fear into the hearts of the Germans, whose panzers are no match for the airborne nude nymph of the Red Army.

Outrageously funny for the first few chapters, but wears very thin and becomes quite tedious in short order: Kononov’s humor depends on familiarity with the pomposities of Soviet mythology that will be lost on most Americans.