Book//mark – Day of the Oprichnik | Vladimir Sorokin, 2006
Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik 2006
“They’re envious because they’re slaves. They know how to pretend. But they don’t really love us, the powerful. And they never will. If they had the chance—they’d cut us to pieces.”
“Each kiosk has to have two of each product so the people can choose. It’s wise and profound. Our people – God’s people – should choose between two products, not three and not thirty-three. When the people choose between two they feel calm, safe for tomorrow, they have no worries and are content. And with a people like that, a content people, great things can be achieved.”
“In general, books burn well. Manuscripts go like gunpowder.”
“Fuck your own mother, it will be less expensive.”
“My mobilov awakens me: One crack of the whip—a scream. Two—a moan. Three—the death rattle. Poyarok recorded it in the Secret Department, when they were torturing the Far Eastern general. It could even wake a corpse. I put the cold mobilov to my warm, sleepy ear. “Komiaga speaking.”
“She looks at me like a tigress at a mouse. I regret opening my mouth.”
“Your Highness, it’s just a handful of malicious dissenters.”
“It’s not a handful of dissenters, you idiot. It’s our barbaric people!”
“How glorious it is to destroy Russia’s enemies, don’t you know,” he mutters, taking out a pack of unfiltered Rodina. “Genghis Khan used to say that the greatest pleasure on earth was to conquer your enemies, plunder their possessions, ride their horses, and love their wives. What a wise man he was!”
“When you’ve lost your head, you don’t fret about your hair.”
“The fist is its own Lord and master.”
“I’ve never had a problem with Jews. My departed father wasn’t a kike eater either. He told me that people used to say that anyone who played the violin more than ten years automatically became a Jew. Mama, may she rest in peace for eternity, didn’t have any problems with Jews; she said it wasn’t the Yids that were dangerous for Russia, but the pseudo-Jews, people whose blood was Russian but pretended to be kikes. […]
But not all were such Jew lovers as my relatives.”
The noble’s hands are immediately tied, and a gag stuffed in his mouth. He’s pushed by his elbows out into the yard. And the wife . . . We’ll handle the wife in a merrier fashion. That’s the way it’s usually done. She’s tied to the butcher table.
“medhermeneutical”
“Batya was the first link in the iron chain of the oprichniks. After him other links were attached, welded, fused into the Great Ring of the oprichnina, its sharp barbs pointed outward. With this ring His Majesty drew a sick, rotting, collapsing country together, he lassoed it like a wounded bear, dripping ichor blood. And the bear grew strong of bone and muscle, its wounds healed, it put on fat, its claws grew out. And we let its blood, blood that was rotten, poisoned by enemies. Now the roar of the Russian bear is heard by the entire world.”
“Snow covers the Earth’s shame. And the soul is purer for it.”
Vladimir Sorokin, Day of the Oprichnik, 2006
