The black manifesto
The Black Manifesto is a novel by Frederick Forsyth from 1996 , which is set mainly in Russia at the time after the actual Cold War .
action
By chance, a document called the Black Manifesto ended up in the British Embassy in Moscow . It was written by the fictional populist Igor Komarov, an aspiring politician who is conducting an ambitious election campaign and wants to win the next presidential election. Komarov is largely modeled on the Russian right-wing populist Vladimir Zhirinovsky .
The manifesto is Komarov's program paper, which outlines his true plans, carefully concealed from the public and abroad: reinstallation of the Soviet Union with hostile submission of the satellite states, expulsion and extermination of Jews from Russian territory, establishment of a police-dominated dictatorship .
After the authenticity of the document has been proven, decisions must be made quickly to influence the choice. Meanwhile, the British government wants nothing to do with it and refuses to intervene. The former head of the British foreign secret service then took the document to a meeting of leading figures, where he was given the green light to act.
He is recruiting an intelligence officer with a profound knowledge of Russia. After a long break, he should go back to Russia and prevent Komarov's election. By chance the agent still has an old contact in Russia who is indebted to him and from whom he is now requesting support.
Forsyth's intentions
As is characteristic of Frederick Forsyth, he artfully combines actual problems of Russia in the nineties with visions of the future that have quite realistic bases: the deep uncertainty in which Russia has found itself for a long time, the incipient disintegration of the federal structure always gave cause for fear that another dictatorship with the harmonization of all state organs could threaten. The longing for the lost status of a world power plays a role in Russia's foreign and domestic policy to this day.
Forsyth, an avowed conservative, cites the introduction of a constitutional monarchy under a new tsar as a remedy for Russia's problems . A not so small part of the book is about how a country, in which 80 years ago the almost absolute monarchy was abolished and the imperial family murdered , could come back to a monarch, what political and genealogical demands would be made on such a person and how one could make such a step palatable to the population and politicians.
filming
The book was filmed in 2005 with Patrick Swayze in the lead role.
output
- Frederick Forsyth: The Black Manifesto. From the English by Wulf Bergner , most recently Goldmann-Taschenbuch, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-442-45752-6 .
Web links
- The Black Manifesto in the Internet Movie Database (English)