Sergeant Sergei (Rex) Govorkov (nicknamed
Furious) is a
fictional character in the 1992
Soviet action/
adventure film
Terminate the Thirtieth!, played by
Igor Livanov. He is arguably a
breakout character. The movie is based on the same-titled novel by Victor Dotsenko. Govorkov, created by Victor Dotsenko in
1980s, is a main protagonist in the novels of other well-known Russian writers including
Yuri Nikitin,
Anton Pervushin,
Valery Roschin,
Kirill Vorobyev. Novels about his adventures made Victor Dotsenko the most published and highest paid Russian writer in 1995. In them his character got to know many prominent Russian politicians and officials, who later became personal friends of Dotsenko in reality (for example, the
mayor of Moscow,
Yury Luzhkov). Overall Dotsenko has written 25 books about Govorkov or about gaps in his fictional biography (for instance,
An Appeal to Furious). Dotsenko even calles himself
Furious's Father (). Today, the total number of books sold about Govorkov's adventures remains unknown. The approximate number is 20,000,000 from 1991 to 2001, which includes books with different covers and by other authors as well as unlicensed books. Some of them have been translated into English.
Short description
Sergei Govorkov is a fictional character, created by Victor Dotsenko, returnee of the Afghan war, who fights the Mafia in the manner of a superhero or
Rambo. He fights mafia criminals, corrupt politicians, Chechen terrorists, and foreign enemies, saving President
Yeltsin and receives a
Purple Heart from
US authorities.
In the novels his name is Savely – a rare Russian name, which was changed to relatively sounding, more common and catchy.
He appeared in more than twenty novels, all of them became a bestsellers.
Fictional character biography
Sergei was brought up in an orphanage, VDV and Spetsnaz Sergeant, martial arts sensei's best trainee, Afghan vet, after being retired he was convicted for a crime he didn't commit, became a prisoner, then an escapee and fugitive from justice, later considered not guilty, back in the Afghan, MIA, then became a POW, during his escape he came into a copter crash, badly wounded and healed by some Pakistani Zoroastrian sect which later initiated him as adept. And by the time depicted in the beginning of "
Terminate the Thirtieth!", he's just a lonely drifter in some oriental country
, completely out of money, applying for any kind of job and attempting to sold his
war decorations to prevent himself from starvation death. His friend Cpt. Voronov (or '11th'), which also became missing in action during the
Afghan campaign, is his only relative - they grew up together in the orphanage.
Complicated tangle, eh? And there is no wonder that KGB, Russian mob and Mujahideen wants him dead or alive. Finally he came back in the USSR, but now it's not the same Country he had left a years ago. New trends, new ideas, new liberties are in the air.
Meaning of the "30th"
30th is a chest-badge number, which is a heritage from his previous owner, killed in the beginning of the novel "Terminate the Thirtieth!"
Victor Dotsenko "Terminate the Thirtieth!":
Other facts
Unlike the novel, the film contains no sex scenes, which are frequent in the novel. Despite, its having been shot shortly after the 'Glasnost' period, sexploitation on the screen was widespread and encouraged. A vast majority of the initiated audience, mostly VDV and Spetsnaz servicemen considered the movie quieter, more interesting and related to reality. This is because Dotsenko, who was Director as well, has used military consultants.
Also, actor Igor Livanov, who portrayed the '30th', served active duty in Soviet marine troops, and was well-experienced in martial arts.
A "Kill the Thirtieth" novel took the 9th position in the 1992'
The Economist chart.
After the 1992' film, there were events, when people change their original name to character's one.
See also
VDV
Spetsnaz
Further reading
Adele Marie Barker "Consuming Russia: popular culture, sex, and society since Gorbachev". Durham, N.C. : Duke University Press, 1999 - 473 p. ISBN 0822323133, 9780822323136 (Page 188)
Birgit Beumers "Pop culture Russia!: media, arts, and lifestyle". Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2005 - 399 p. ISBN 1851094598, 9781851094592 (Page 300)
Eliot Borenstein "Overkill: sex and violence in contemporary Russian popular culture". Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2008 - 265 p. ISBN 0801474035, 9780801474033
Michael L. Bressler "Understanding contemporary Russia". Boulder : Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009 - 423 p. ISBN 1588265862, 9781588265869 (Page 371)
Anna Brodsky, Mark Naumovich Lipovetskiĭ, Marina Kanevskaya, Sven Spieker "The imprints of terror: the rhetoric of violence and the violence of rhetoric in modern Russian culture". Gesellschaft zur Förderung slawistischer Studien, 2006 - 290 p. ISBN 3876909791, 9783876909790 (Page 121)
Anthony Olcott "Russian pulp: the detektiv and the Russian way of crime". Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, 2001 - 207 p. ISBN 0742511405, 9780742511408 (Pages 33,145,191,202)
"Russian studies in literature", vol. 36. Periodical. Armonk, NY : M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2000. ISSN: 1061-1975
"The Soviet and post-Soviet review", vol. 29. Periodical. Salt Lake City, UT : College of Humanities, University of Utah, 2002. ISSN: 1075-1262
References
Category:Fictional sergeants
Category:Fictional Spetsnaz personnel
Category:Fictional war veterans
Category:Fictional mercenaries
Category:Fictional private military members
Category:Characters in Russian novels of the 20th century
Category:Russian characters in written fiction