觀點小說

The Wizard of the Kremlin — what really drives Putin?

Giuliano da Empoli’s first novel is a fictional account of the Russian president’s rise, told through the eyes of a shadowy political adviser

Recent sightings of the 71-year-old Vladimir Putin tend to be described in the hushed tones of a concerned matron. Did you see his arm tremor? Why is he looking so puffy and pale? What’s all that table-gripping about? The desire to know what is going on behind the scenes at the Kremlin has grown exponentially since the war in Ukraine began over 18 months ago. Into this imaginative vacuum strides Giuliano da Empoli’s first novel, The Wizard of the Kremlin, an acute and timely dissection of Russian power, told through the eyes of a shadowy political adviser to Putin. 

The so-called “wizard” of the novel is Vadim Baranov, a fictional figure whose penchant for avant-garde theatrics and disruptive propaganda bears apparent similarities to Putin’s former political adviser Vladislav Surkov — known for establishing Russia’s political doctrines of “sovereign democracy” and the “vertical of power”, a system in which the buck stops with one man and one man alone.

“The only thing that matters in Russia is privilege, proximity to power. Everything else is secondary,” Baranov tells his urbane interlocutor — seemingly a version of the author himself — during a nighttime meeting in Moscow. Baranov, who is retired from political life at the time of the interview, recounts his contributions to the political rise of Putin, whom he revealingly nicknames “the tsar.” 

您已閱讀30%(1366字),剩餘70%(3195字)包含更多重要資訊,訂閱以繼續探索完整內容,並享受更多專屬服務。
版權聲明:本文版權歸FT中文網所有,未經允許任何單位或個人不得轉載,複製或以任何其他方式使用本文全部或部分,侵權必究。
設置字型大小×
最小
較小
默認
較大
最大
分享×