Day of the Oprichnik

Day of the Oprichnik is a 2006 novel by the Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin. The narrative is set in the near future, when the Tsardom of Russia has been restored, and follows a government henchman, an oprichnik, through a day of grotesque events. Sorokin in one of the later interviews confessed that he did not anticipate his novel would be an accurate picture of the future, even in some subtle details, but rather wrote this book as a warning and "mystical precaution" against the state of affairs described in the storyline. The title is a reference to the Oprichnina, the black-clad secret police of Ivan the Terrible, whose symbol was a black dog's head and a broom.