Неоопричнина или антиутопия Сорокина
Neooprichnina or Sorokin's dystopia

Summary/Abstract: The papers discusses one of the latest novel of Vladimir Sorokin, A Day in the Life of an Oprichnik and Sugar Kremlin (2006, 2008). Written in the manner of classical Russian and Soviet anti-utopian novels (Zamiatin, Grossman, Platonov, Tatiana Tolstaia and so on), the two novels are a very good example of transformation of Sorokin‘s style: starting with his papers in conceptualist, antisoviet/ antisocialist realistic style, the writer changed gradually its style, becoming more focused on a main idea, a main theme, and not on expression and shocking words. The two novels, parts of a dilogy, are a very good example of Russian totalitarianism, from oprichnina established by Ivan the Terrible in 16th century to Red dictatorship during Soviet era. Placing its action in the future, the novels are describing in fact contemporary Russia, like a Janus facing both to the past and to the future. Pointing out a very sad conclusion, the novels concluded that in Russian nothing essential changed: in despite of a visible surfaces full of changes, the moral and political essence is the same: the autocratic regime is the only one possible in Russia, no matter of historical era.

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