The cover of the 1958 edition.
The Adventures of Captain Wrongel (Russian: Приключения капитана Врунгеля) is a children's humor/adventure book by Andrey Nekrasov, first published in serialized form in 1937. It chronicles the voyage of Captain Wrongel, First Mate Lom and (not actually) Seaman Fuchs across the globe in an Affectionate Parody of actual stories of sea voyages.It was adapted into an animated series in 1980, which became an Audience-Coloring Adaptation despite actually being very loose.
Tropes featured in the book:
- Big Bad: Admiral Hamura Kusaki, a member of the Japanese Imperial Navy as well as a society supposedly dedicated to the preservation of whales, but in actuality wants to eradicate them all (because after all, they can’t die out slowly if they’re all killed), comes to despise Vrungel after he tries treating a sick whale, and so he follows the crew of the Trouble around to occasionally cause trouble for them.
- Bowdlerise:
- The 1981 English translation removes two chapters taking place after Vrungel and Fuchs reunite with Lom in Brazil where the crew visit Australia, the first involving Kusaki dressing up in blackface to (unsuccessfully) try to fool Vrungel into hiring him, and the second involving Vrungel having normal conversations with Aboriginal Australians where the people are portrayed sympathetically, though quite stereotypically.
- Fuchs was originally explicitly a cardsharp, but after parents wrote in to complain about it, he was changed to simply be good at card tricks; likewise, parents complained about Lom's love of drink, and that aspect of him is not present in the above-mentioned 1981 translation.
- Captured by Cannibals: Averted. While sleeping in Australia, Vrungel sees Lom sitting at a campfire with aboriginals and assumes that they plan on eating him, so he rushes out to help. It turns out to be a misunderstanding, Lom was having a pleasant conversation with them, and they were at a distance so as not to wake Vrungel.
- Card Sharp: Fuchs is an expert in card games. Since card and map are homonyms in Russian, Lom thinks Fuchs is an expert in maps and promptly hires him.
- Contrived Coincidence: Vrungel and Fuchs are separated from Lom twice over the course of the book, and both times they manage to reunite with each other, no matter where in the world they were separated in and which ways they went. The first time was when the group got split up in Antarctica, forcing Vrungel and Fuchs to go to Hawaii, and then to Brazil, and after their arrival, they find out that Lom just so happened to have gone to Brazil as well and was living there as a hermit. The second time was when a typhoon blew Lom all the way to Japan, while Fuchs and Vrungel were hitching a ride to Canada on a different ship, only for Lom to emerge from the ship’s coal pile and explain that while he was on the run in Japan, he jumped into a coal wharf for safety, and then that pile was scooped up and placed into the vessel which Vrungel and Fuchs were on.
- The Dandy: Archibald Dandy, naturally. He even wears a fancy white suit during the actual regatta of the Yacht Club.
- Direct Line to the Author: The book's author claims to be a student of Vrungel who heard the story from him and wrote it down, with Vrungel later making some minor edits for publication.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: One German member of the whale preservation society that Admiral Kusaki is a part of tells Vrungel that sperm whales, such as the one that Vrungel tried treating, have elongated skulls such as how Aryans supposedly had, and that by failing to do his duties for the whale (i.e. honorably killing it), Vrungel was insulting the entire Aryan race. Since it’s unclear when exactly the story takes place, it’s unknown if these people are predecessors to the Nazi Party (and the Axis alliance with Japan) or if they are actually Nazis.
- Evil Doppelgänger: The last challenge Vrungel and his crew have to face is during their last stop where they see three sailors who look very similar to themselves and claim to be the real deal, confusing the news reporters who are there and greatly disturbing the crew of the Trouble. It turns out to be Kusaki and two minions in disguise.
- Experienced Protagonist: At the time of the Peril’s voyage, Wrongel is already an experienced and well-known captain who could have commanded the largest steamship if he chose.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: In the end of the book, the Peril's crew go their separate ways.
- George Lucas Altered Version: Andrei Nekrasov released slightly different versions of the book over the years, such as including a glossary for the various nautical terminology the characters use, along with inserting then-modern references, like Vrungel mentioning how Benito Mussolini would eventually be killed after the events of the story.
- Hate Sink: Kusaki has no redeeming qualities at all, defined primarily by his pettiness and determination to get in Vrungel’s way over something minor, coming up with various outlandish schemes to sabotage the crew’s global voyage. Besides that, he wants to exterminate all whales under the guise of wanting to protect them and is very racist.
- Literal-Minded: Lom is chronically unable to understand metaphors. For example, when he is hidden on another ship and Wrongel tells him to sing "of himself" (a Russian idiom meaning "in his mind"), Lom actually starts singing about himself very loudly and nearly gets found out.
- Meaningful Name:
- Fuchs (fox in German) actually is very cunning, a quality often attributed to foxes.
- "Kusaki" sounds similar to "kusaka", Russian for "biter".
- Zig-zagged with the Peril. Captain Wrongel names his ship Pobeda (Victory), but two letters fall off, turning it into Beda (Peril). For a long time, the Peril survives all sorts of ordeals around the world, making the name ironic, but then she actually does sink for good.
- Mistaken Ethnicity:
- When Captain Wrongel and Fuchs arrive in Honolulu, they think the administration of Waikiki Beach has mistaken them for Native Hawaiians whom they don't resemble in the slightest. Turns out that it hasn't: it has mistaken them for white actors hired to pose as Native Hawaiians.
- Later invoked by Wrongel after his plane crashes in South America. To prevent the passengers from recognizing him as one of them and realizing he used a single ticket for himself and Fuchs, he quickly claims he is a researcher of the Amazon jungle and Fuchs is his Native American guide.
- The Münchausen: Vrungel himself is partially meant to be an Expy of Baron Munchausen and is also based on a real-life friend of the author, who likewise had a propensity for telling tall tales about himself, meaning that the book’s outlandish events are probably not to be taken literally.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Gadenbeck is a rather obvious caricature of Carl Hagenbeck
. - Omniglot: As being able to speak multiple languages is practically a necessity for any globe-trotting sailor, from descriptions and dialogue it can be assumed that Vrungel, besides Russian, knows at least some English, German, French, Italian, Norwegian, Dutch, and Portuguese. Fuchs, meanwhile, says he is able to speak Russian, English, French, and German, and Lom's inability to speak any other language besides Russian presents some problems when trying to communicate with others along the voyage, though he at least attempted to learn English before the trip which eventually faded. The cartoon has all the characters speaking Russian most of the time, regardless of whatever nationality they are.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Kusaki is shown to be extremely racist when he dresses up in blackface, calls himself “Uncle Tom” and Vrungel his master, to try tricking Vrungel into hiring him as a crew member. However, Vrungel had already seen him putting on the makeup, so it doesn’t work.
- Saying Too Much: When Kusaki disguises himself as Vrungel and is told that there's already another Vrungel with a crew in town, he reacts with, "There can be no other Vrungel. I sank him himself in the Pacific Ocean."
- Seppuku: Subverted. When Kusaki’s Vrungel disguise is exposed, he pulls out a dagger and slices across his belly… feathers and fluff then come out of it, Kusaki having only sliced open the fake torso he put on to look more like Vrungel.
- Shown Their Work: The author used to be a seaman himself, so underneath all the satire and parody, he gives a spot-on description of seafaring laws and traditions.
- Sinking Ship Scenario: When Vrungel and Fuchs approach Japan to attempt searching for Lom, the fog becomes so thick that they’re unable to see a torpedo boat coming at them until it’s too late, and the Trouble sinks for good, though at least Vrungel and Fuchs had just enough time to grab some equipment and make a raft.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Lom starts off being described as well-built, but because the crew go through a few periods during their journey where they were starving, by the time they near the end of the voyage, Lom is then described as having become very thin, though he's still quite strong.
- Upper-Class Twit: Archibald Dandy and the rest of the English Yacht Club. At first, Archibald got insulted by Vrungel mistaking him for a beggar, and so they got into a fistfight. Archibald went on to be helpful during the yacht race, but when the crew went to collect their prizes, a petty squabble in the Yacht Club turns into an all-out brawl, and so the crew has to leave.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After Vrungel wraps up his story to his student, he explains that after the global trip was over with, Lom would take command of the replacement yacht, while Fuchs would become a movie actor who specialized in playing villains.
- Yellow Peril: Kusaki technically counts as an example, although he’s overall quite a bit less stereotypical in his mannerisms and actions, being fairly incompetent and solely focused on causing trouble for the crew of the Trouble rather than having any grand ambitions (other than overseeing the slaughter of all whales). As he reflects about Kusaki, Vrungel stresses that it’s the imperialist aspect of the society that Kusaki was a part of as an admiral that was the real problem, having similar disdain for the fascist ideals of the Italian Banditto.
