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adlet 's review for:
Day of the Oprichnik
by Vladimir Sorokin
“Day of the Oprichnik” is essentially a slice of life political satire dystopian novel about a member of the secret police in futuristic medieval oppressive Russia. Vladimir Sorokin is a prominent contemporary Russian writer, whose “Day of the Oprichnik” got nominated to Booker Prize, was published in 10 languages and got a sequel in a form of a collection of short stories “Sugar Kremlin”. Vladimir Sorokin is mostly a political writer, postmodernist, playwright and a screenwriter with several Russian awards, and some international such as “Liberty Award”, “Gorky’s Award” and a Prize from the German ministry of culture.
In so much as the “Brave New World” is a critique of exaggerated consumerism obsessions that is called by some a prophetic book alongside “1984”, “Day of the Oprichnik” is a critique of relatively not so far-fetched outcomes of policies and consequences of modern Russia, more akin to the latter rather than the former. Middle of XXI century Russia is a scary place – secret police (oprichnina) is revived from the middle ages when it was first established by Ivan the Terrible, oppressive government controls all the production and industry, loaded propaganda facilitates archaic mindset and imaginary Slavic/Russian national idea, power is guarded and people are segregated. The wealthy now do not have four wall-sized monitors to talk to their “relatives”, they have nice wooden “Izbushkas” that will be set on fire if they fall out of authorities’ favour. Now, from each according to his status, to each according to his status, where the higher your status, the less you give and the more you take. It is both futuristic and archaic, satirizing and analytical, operating with familiar to make it grotesque to the point of self-refectory disgust. The protagonist is a member of said secret police – an oprichnik of high status, burning homes in the mornings and counting income from racket in the evening. Through his entrusted in the high position of power eyes, the reader can see all the levels of satire Sorokin layers on the social ladder of futuristic Russia, from slaving peasants to manipulative and perverted powers that be. Although it is convention to the “slice-of-life” genre to not develop heroes all that much, to end where all starts, the background that Sorokin presents for the story of one day is something that I would claim as a character in the novel. That background, directly presented, talked about in dialogue, described through some objects or symbols can be seen as the “main subject” of the novel. The background is the state of Russia in the middle of XXI century – oppressive regime spiraling into an archaic regression, unsaved by the scientific progress and isolated within its walls. The themes of imaginary or propaganda-painted enemies, self-sufficient and self-centered existence of state, power of the state and not the citizen, oppression of the nation, segregation by multitude of factors are the themes that are talked all too often and all too seriously in the context of modern Russia, their resonance leaves no other alternative than to take them seriously, even if aided by a fiction book to do so. Sorokin wrote the book “Day of the Oprichnik” in 2006, and in the interview by Colta in 2012 he said that “It has become common to see his novel and its sequel as prophetic in last three years” (http://archives.colta.ru/docs/9285). As a political writer and a postmodernist, Sorokin is very generous with connections to real people and current problems that Russia and the world face, too much to recognize in one read-through. And as the protagonist would say: “thank god for that”. Read it if not for the love of dystopias, political critique and recognized mastery of the author, then for its relevancy to the modern.
In so much as the “Brave New World” is a critique of exaggerated consumerism obsessions that is called by some a prophetic book alongside “1984”, “Day of the Oprichnik” is a critique of relatively not so far-fetched outcomes of policies and consequences of modern Russia, more akin to the latter rather than the former. Middle of XXI century Russia is a scary place – secret police (oprichnina) is revived from the middle ages when it was first established by Ivan the Terrible, oppressive government controls all the production and industry, loaded propaganda facilitates archaic mindset and imaginary Slavic/Russian national idea, power is guarded and people are segregated. The wealthy now do not have four wall-sized monitors to talk to their “relatives”, they have nice wooden “Izbushkas” that will be set on fire if they fall out of authorities’ favour. Now, from each according to his status, to each according to his status, where the higher your status, the less you give and the more you take. It is both futuristic and archaic, satirizing and analytical, operating with familiar to make it grotesque to the point of self-refectory disgust. The protagonist is a member of said secret police – an oprichnik of high status, burning homes in the mornings and counting income from racket in the evening. Through his entrusted in the high position of power eyes, the reader can see all the levels of satire Sorokin layers on the social ladder of futuristic Russia, from slaving peasants to manipulative and perverted powers that be. Although it is convention to the “slice-of-life” genre to not develop heroes all that much, to end where all starts, the background that Sorokin presents for the story of one day is something that I would claim as a character in the novel. That background, directly presented, talked about in dialogue, described through some objects or symbols can be seen as the “main subject” of the novel. The background is the state of Russia in the middle of XXI century – oppressive regime spiraling into an archaic regression, unsaved by the scientific progress and isolated within its walls. The themes of imaginary or propaganda-painted enemies, self-sufficient and self-centered existence of state, power of the state and not the citizen, oppression of the nation, segregation by multitude of factors are the themes that are talked all too often and all too seriously in the context of modern Russia, their resonance leaves no other alternative than to take them seriously, even if aided by a fiction book to do so. Sorokin wrote the book “Day of the Oprichnik” in 2006, and in the interview by Colta in 2012 he said that “It has become common to see his novel and its sequel as prophetic in last three years” (http://archives.colta.ru/docs/9285). As a political writer and a postmodernist, Sorokin is very generous with connections to real people and current problems that Russia and the world face, too much to recognize in one read-through. And as the protagonist would say: “thank god for that”. Read it if not for the love of dystopias, political critique and recognized mastery of the author, then for its relevancy to the modern.