This 1870 novel is essential reading for anyone who wakes up in the morning and says to themselves “why is Russia so historically, permanently, irredeemably fucked up?” (which is surely most of us). The title alone tells us we’re in microcosm country here, and Saltykov is a satirist of the sledgehammer, rather than the stiletto, persuasion. His annal of mad mayors covers all the bases of bad governance — hubris, solipsism, sadism, greed — and he doesn’t neglect the intrinsic role of the Russian psyche in the country's production line of kakistocracies. It’s also of obvious relevance to the political disasters currently underway in various western countries, and the translators hammer this home by (surely somewhat tenuously despite their footnoted protestations) rendering the name of one minor nincompoop as “Trump”.

With its penchant for the absurd/fantastic (e.g. the “Music Box” mayor whose head contains… a music box) it’s plumb in the lineage of Gogol and modern iconoclasts like Sorokin. So I should love it — but too much of the satire dissipates into essayistic aridity as Saltykov labors to elucidate his point. The brutally unsubtle character names don’t help. There are some very funny and one or two quite terrifying portraits here — Final Boss Sullen-Grumble would surely be embraced by DOGE for his anti-ideology of proud ignorance, nihilism and infantile vandalism — but I prefer my satire slyer and more seditious.