Day of the Oprichnik

5 hrs. 25 min.

Audio Plays, Radio Productions & Literary Readings

Language Russian

Author Vladimir Sorokin

Narrators Vladimir Sorokin, Mikhail Gorevoy, Mikhail Efremov, Alexander Sklyar, Alexey Gorbunov

Narrator Vladimir Sorokin

Narrator Mikhail Gorevoy

Narrator Mikhail Efremov

Narrator Alexander Sklyar

Narrator Alexey Gorbunov

Description

A radio play based on the scandalously famous novel by a classic of modern Russian literature!

In form, “The Day of the Oprichnik” is a “story of one day”: the book describes one of the Mondays of the tsar’s man Andrey Komyaga, which began with a terrible hangover. And then everything goes according to plan: burn the traitor’s house to the ground, deal with clowns–buffoons, fly on business to Orenburg and Tobolsk, return to Moscow, have dinner with the sovereign, and in the evening steam in the bathhouse with the brothers-oprichniki.

Andrey, who went into the oprichnina. In Russia of the near future, the far past has returned—the oprichnina of the 16th century. Here, too, bonfires are lit from improper books and magazines “Playboy,” which citizens voluntarily turned in along with their foreign passports. Attempts at dissent and treason are exterminated according to the recipe of Ivan the Terrible.

Attaching dogs’ heads and brooms to the bumpers of the “mules,” Komyaga’s oprichniki roam the country. For diligence in service to the tsar, an oprichnik gets access to Kremlin feasts, a percentage from customs operations, and an unlimited supply of cocaine and heroin (in S. Sorokin’s version—“kokosha” and “gerasim”). In general, the author’s favorite coinages alone can’t help but amuse. Instead of televisions, people have “news bubbles,” and as ringtones for the mobile oprichniki they choose whipping strikes and the screams of their victims.

Following the main character, the reader learns what Russia turned into by 2028, after the restoration of the monarchy and the construction of an impregnable wall separating it from the West.