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The Feelings of an Oprichnik (On Vladimir Sorokin’s Day of the Oprichnik)
Josip Užarević
; Sveučilište u Zagrebu
Sažetak
The article examines the “psychopoetics” of Vladimir Sorokin’s novels The Day of the Oprichnik (2006) and The Sugar Kremlin (2008). Although nominally set in the year 2028, their narratives overlap temporally and symbolically with the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible in the sixteenth century. Distinguishing among emotions, feelings, and passions, the author argues that in literature such psychic phenomena constitute part of the artistic material—no less essential to the fictional world than linguistic or extralinguistic elements. A central category in Sorokin’s works under consideration is the “sense of statehood,” a construct that encompasses hierarchy (with the Master positioned at the apex of the value–emotional pyramid), love, loyalty, reverence, the brotherhood of the oprichniki, and ritualized obedience. Pride and patriotic fervor become concentrated in the symbolic aura of the Kremlin. While predominantly grotesque and satirical, these novels are not reducible to satire; beneath their corrosive irony lies an unmistakable concern for the future of the country—and, by extension, the world. Emotions in these texts display an ambivalent, often paradoxical nature: love blends with hatred, admiration with fear. They operate both at the individual (personal) and collective (mass, popular) levels, and manifest themselves physiologically. Notably, emotions exert comparable effects in real life and in “parareality,” a state shaped by dreams or drugs. In conclusion, while Sorokin subjects History, Religion, and the State to radical critique, he leaves language (Russian) and feeling (also Russian) effectively unquestioned. His novels offer an X-ray–like image of the “Russian soul,” simultaneously inheriting and critically reinterpreting the Russian literary tradition.
Ključne riječi
Vladimir Sorokin; The Day of the Oprichnik; The Sugar Kremlin; “psychopoetics”; sense of statehood; language; feeling
Hrčak ID:
342282
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.12.2025.
Posjeta: 458 *