Day of the Oprichnik

Sorokin in one of the later interviews[1] confessed that he did not anticipate his novel be an accurate picture of the future, even in some subtle details, but rather wrote this book as a warning and "mystical precaution" against the state of events described in the storyline.

The title is a reference to the Oprichnina, the black-clad secret police of Ivan the Terrible, whose symbol was a black dog's head (to sniff out treason) and a broom (to sweep away all traitors).

The oprichnina get to enjoy such privileges as riding in a Mercedes ('Mercedov') that has a dog's head tied to the bumpers, and living in a terem taken from an "enemy of the people".The neo-medieval enforcer's morning sees him murder a boyar (nobleman) and join in the gang-rape of his wife, a task he justifies to himself as important work.

From there Komiaga conducts other seemingly routine activities: he investigates an artist penning inflammatory poetry about the Tsarina, visits a book-burning clairvoyant, ingests a fish that lays hallucinogenic eggs in his brain, and finally participates in ritualistic group sex and self-torture with his fellow Oprichniki.

[4] Sorokin has been vocal in expressing his dislike of not only Solzhenitsyn as a man, but also his writing style and his right-wing politics, so the reference is unlikely to be understood as a favorable tribute.

[6] Behind the Thistle is a future history, depicting Russia in the 1990s being ruled by a restored monarchy that has severed all contact with the West, which is precisely the same scenario as Day of the Oprichnik (which is set in 2028), but only Sorokin has inverted the premise.

[4] As in Behind the Thistle, the social order in Day of the Oprichnik is upheld by daily public floggings, torture and executions of Russians who dare to think differently and Russia has very close relations with China.

The fact that the Oprichniki in the novel, who despite their self-proclaimed status as the guardians of the state and society use words and phrases from the dialect of the vory is meant to be ironical and comic.

"[11] The narrator tells the reader that the Great Wall was necessary to "cut us off from stench and unbelievers, from the damned, cyberpunks, from sodomites, Catholics, melancholiacs, from Buddhists, sadists, Satanists, and Marxists; from megamasturbators, fascists, pluralists, and atheists!

[10] The principal revenue for the Russian state is taxing the Chinese businessmen who sent their products on vast convoys of trucks to Europe via the highway.

Through Komiaga portrays the Russia of the novel as the world's greatest power, he also complains that "the Chinese are expanding their population in Krasnoryarsk and Novosibirsk".

[13] The Russian literature scholar Tatiana Filimonova has accused Sorokin of engaging in this novel together with all his other books in the fear of the "Yellow Peril", noting in a recurring theme of all his novels is the image of China as an expansionist and economically dominating power that will subject Russia to its will and as the Chinese as a soulless, materialistic people devoid of any positive qualities whose only interest is sheer greed.

[15] Sorokin's heroes tend to be humanist intellectuals who have to struggle against both corrupt, petty and mean-spirited bureaucrats who are temperamentally opposed to any change and the apathy, ignorance and philistinism of the Russian masses.

[10] Just as was the case with the real Oprichnina, the Oprichniki drink heavily and toast the Tsar and the Orthodox Church while engaging in extreme sadistic violence that is the complete antithesis of the Christian values that they profess to uphold.

[3] 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.

Bursting with near-hysterical enthusiasm, the latter-day Oprichnik crosses himself and invokes the Holy Church as he righteously inflicts sickening violence on His Majesty's identified enemies".

[17] In Krasnov's book the "Jewish Question" has been solved as "they [the Jews] no longer have the power to rule over us nor can they hide under false Russian names to infiltrate the government".

[17] In both books, people watch patriotic plays at the theater, dance to the traditional music of the balalaika, listen to singers who sing only folk songs, and read newspapers beautifully printed in the ornate Russian of the 16th century, which have no editorials about any issue.

[11] The way in which the Oprichniki pursue their own interests while constantly mouthing the language of Russian patriotism to justify their misdeeds satirizes the siloviki, the former secret police officials who enjoy much power and prestige in the Russia of Vladimir Putin.

[20] In Krasnov's novel, a recurring themes is a dream that occurs in the mind of the hero where he sees a beautiful girl threatened by the zmei gorynych, the monstrous three-headed dragon of Russian mythology.

[21] In this way, Sorokin inverts the key symbolism of Krasnov's book, turning Russia into the male zmei gorynych and the innocent girl becomes the West.

[22] Women appear in Day of the Oprichnik only as rape victims, entertainers or sex objects as the unpopular czarina becomes popular because of her "mesmerizing" breasts.

General Pyotr Nikolayevich Krasnov, the ataman of the Don Cossack Host in 1919. The Day of the Oprichnik is a parody of his 1927 novel Behind the Thistle
Vladmir Sorokin, the controversial author of The Day of the Oprichnik whose novels were flushed down a paper-mache pseudo-toilet at a rally by the Putin Youth as "unRussian".
Mikhail Bakhtin in 1920. Much of The Day of the Oprichnik is influenced by Bakhtin's theories of the collective grotesque body
Dobrynya Nikitich rescues Princess Zabava from the Zmey Gorynych , by Ivan Bilibin . In a hallucinatory drug sequence, Andrei Danialovich Komyaga who likes to cast himself as a bogatyr imagines himself and the other Oprichniki merging their bodies into a zmei gorynchy that destroys America.