April 21, 2022

Day of the Oprichnik, 16 Years Later
Sorokin deserves credit for bothering to skewer such a marginal figure
This rhythm in Russia, of repression and violent revolution, is well known to Sorokin, who first emerged as a writer under Soviet rule in the 1980s, when he was no less irritating to the Kremlin. He’s not just a satirist but also a speculative fantasist, and he became angrily political after Putin came to power.