Day of the Oprichnik: A novel

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Such convictions are central to the Holy Russian Motherland and the “Eurasianism”-versus-the-West brand of ethnic nationalism that has become a cornerstone of Vladimir Putin’s governing philosophy since he came to power. He takes no prisoners, in other words—he knows what he’s up against, and he spits it in the eye—and Day of the Oprichnik works as an enduring caricature of Russian strong-man culture as envisioned by its latest Strong Man, who, if he keeps it up, will be remembered as the numbskull who set Russia back a few hundred years by removing it from the community of nations and sinking it under mountains of pointless war debt.

The country is, as with Putin’s Russia, nominally Christian with, for example, obscenity banned (for which, as with many other transgressions, real or imagined) the punishment is severe.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I do not know enough about the FSB (or the KGB when Putin was in it) but I am assuming that while there may be some similarities to the Oprochniks, a lot is different.

The disembodied Tsar may, to some degree resemble Putin, but in many ways (wife, son-in-law, background) he definitely does not. We follow one Andrei Danilovich Komiaga, one of the senior oprichniks, as he participates in the destruction of a wayward noble's estate.If you know Russian, you should read it in original, the language of this book is incredible and, hm, beautiful? The title and 24-hour frame of Day of the Oprichnik bring to mind Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), an exposé of a Gulag camp that depicts an Everyman-victim who finds dignity in labor, almost like a Socialist Realist hero. Sicherlich, literarische Übertreibung ist ein gängiges Mittel um den Lesern gegenwärtige Missstände vor Augen zu führen.

Much like Ivan the Terrible, the Tsar in Day of the Oprichnik insists obsessively on "chastity and cleanliness" from his subjects.Though Sorokin is not an expatriate, he would presumably be classified in this way by Putin and his associates. In Behind the Thistle, Krasnov described in detail an unsuccessful Soviet invasion of Poland and Romania that led to vast quantities of deadly chemical gases being released which kill millions at the beginning of the novel; by contrast Sorokin is a rather vaguer about the nature of the disaster, which is described in his novel only as the "Grey Turmoil".

Now some 15 years old, this violent and perverse satire of Russian nationalism and despotism has become sadly more relevant since its writing, not less. Each car is fitted with a dead dog's head as the hood ornament and a broom behind to show that they sweep Russia clean of the Tsar's enemies. In the novel, gigantic underground high-speed trains link every city in Russia and everything has been computerized. The American critic Victoria Nelson noted in her review:"In a pitch-perfect channeling of the fascist temperament, the voice [of the narrator] proudly sharing these brutal exploits radiates a naïve and sentimental piety ruthlessly undercut by vicious sadism and self-regarding cunning.Aber all dies hätte ich auch in einer journalistischen oder wissenschaftlichen Schrift lesen können, wozu also ein belletristisches Buch. The narrator, the fourth most powerful oprichnik in His Majesty’s elite cadre, recounts the luxurious morning he spends attended by an army of servants in his grand house confiscated from a murdered merchant.