Day of the Oprichnik (, Den' oprichnika) is a 2006 novel by the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin. The narrative is set in the near future, when the Tsardom of Russia has been restored, and follows a government henchman, an oprichnik, through a day of grotesque events. Sorokin in one of the later interviews confessed that he did not anticipate his novel would 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 affairs 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).
Plot summary In 2028, the Tsardom of the days of Ivan the Terrible has been restored and Russia is isolated from the rest of the world by a "Great Russian Wall". The Tsarist autocracy has been restored, and the ideals of xenophobia, protectionism, corruption and nationalism are strong within the nation. The only foreign things that make it out of or into Russia are natural gas and goods from the China-Europe transit.
The novel begins with protagonist Andrei Komiaga, fourth highest in the ranking of the oprichnina, dreaming of a white stallion, a recurrent symbol of freedom that progressively slips away from the Oprichnik (the real Oprichniks of the 16th century always rode black horses). 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. The day ends with a demented Komiaga returning home, only to find that the white stallion of his dreams has retreated further from his grasp.
Reception From The New York Times Book Review: "Sorokin's pyrotechnics are often craftily twinned with Soviet-era references and conventions. 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. But whereas Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece unintentionally demonstrated the deep impact that Soviet tropes had on its author, Sorokin's comic turn deliberately shows how Soviet and even Old Muscovy mentalities persist." Victoria Nelson in her review wrote: "It's an outrageous, salacious, over-the-top tragicomic depiction of an utterly depraved social order whose absolute monarch (referred to only as "His Majesty") is a blatant conflation of the country's current president with its ferocious 16th-century absolute monarch known as Ivan Grozny."
Analysis The title of the book is a reference to the 1962 novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. 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. However, most of the novel is a parody of the 1927 novel Za chertopolokhom (Behind the Thistle) by General Pyotr Krasnov, the former ataman of the Don Cossack Host who went into exile in 1919. Krasnov's novel, published in Russian in Paris, was almost completely unknown in Russia until 2002 when it was published in Moscow and has become quite popular, being in its third reprinting as of 2009. 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. The Russia of the future depicted in the Day of the Oprichnik is as dystopian as Krasnov's Russia of the future is utopian.
As in Behind the Thistle, the Russia of Day of the Oprichnik is ruled over by a restored monarchy which came about as a result of an apocalyptic disaster that killed millions. 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". The term "Grey Turmoil" is a reference to the "Red Turmoil" of 1917 and the "White Turmoil" of 1991. 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 Tsar in Day of the Oprichnik resembles Ivan the Terrible in terms of both appearance and personality, and much like the real Ivan has a stern, patriarchal leadership style, portraying himself the father of the nation and his subjects as his "children" in need of his strict supervision. Much like Ivan the Terrible, the Tsar in Day of the Oprichnik insists obsessively on "chastity and cleanliness" from his subjects. As in Krasnov's novel, the Russian characters dress in traditional costumes; the men grow the traditional long beards while the women braid their hair; and all of the characters speak in a pseudo-folksy way meant to evoke the Russian of the 16th and 17th centuries. Alongside the intentionally anachronistic Russian, the language of Day of the Oprichnik includes much slang from the vory v zakone ("thieves in law", i.e. Russian organised crime, which forms a very distinctive subculture in Russia complete with its own dialect of Russian) and New Russian slang of 1990s-2000s, making for a Russian that sounds both very modern and jarringly anachronistic. In the novel, a house is called a terem, a mobile phone is a mobilov and a car is called a merin (mule). The ringtone for the phones of the oprichniks is the cracking of a whip. Marijuana has been legalised in this Russia it "does no harm to a simple person, but helps him relax".
The subculture of the vory v zakone who despite their name engage in all sorts of criminal activity is characterized by its own dialect and its own rules. For an example, a vor (thief) must never willingly serve in the military; must never a report a crime, even against themselves; and must never testify against another vor, even if he is a rival. The most notable distinguishing marks of the vory are that their bodies are covered with elaborate tattoos full of symbolism about their status within the vory v zakone and that they always wear Orthodox crucifixes around their necks. As the vory have a well deserved reputation for being brutal, amoral and predatory criminals, their dialect of Russian has a very low status in Russia, and to speak the dialect of the vory is just as much a mark of criminality as to have one's bodies covered with their tattoos. 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.
Like in Behind the Thistle, a gigantic wall has been built to sever all contact with the West while Russia under the restored monarchy uses advanced technology. Echoing the Great Wall of China the wall is called the Great Wall of Russia." 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!" In the Day of the Oprichnik, an enormous super-highway has been built to link Russia to China, and Chinese cultural influence is very strong with paintings of Chinese dragons commonly been seen on the walls of homes alongside Orthodox icons and, most people eat Chinese food using chopsticks alongside traditional Russian food. 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. Everything that is used in Russia is manufactured in China leading characters to bemoan "We make children on Chinese beds!" and "We do our business on Chinese toilets!" Unlike Behind the Thistle where Russia and China are equal partners in an alliance to uphold Asian values, it is strongly implied in Day of the Oprichnik that Russia and China are not equals with the more wealthier and powerful Chinese being the senior partners and Russians the junior partners in their alliance.
The Russia of Day of the Oprichnik seems to be in the Chinese sphere of influence, and it is hinted that it is the leaders in Beijing who dictate to the leaders in Moscow as it stated that all of the weapons used by the Russian Army are made in China. At one point, the Oprichniki when talking to their commander whom they call Batia (Daddy) ask him: "How much more longer does our great Russia have to kowtow before China?" The Tsar of Day of the Oprichnik is presented as all-powerful to his subjects, but he may in fact be a mere puppet leader. 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". The Tsar distracts attention of the Oprichniki from their fears of Chinese domination by encouraging them to engage in more violence against their fellow Russians. 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. However, Sorokin's target are as much Russia's institutions as China, which he portrays as fostering a stifling conservatism that crushes intellectual innovation and criticism, leading to a stagnant and declining Russia that inevitably falls into the Chinese sphere of influence. 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.