The Monastery is a remarkable book produced by a deeply flawed author whose politics and prose promote extremism. This does not mean that Prilepin’s novel is not worth reading, but it places a special burden on the reader (and even more so on the critic). Literature — especially in Russia — does not exist without context; it echoes society’s hopes, worries, and shapes how generations will view their country and its place in the world. The Monastery suggests the artistry and introspection that Prilepin is capable of while underscoring the sad consequences of the intolerance and bloodshed he has often encouraged.
Benjamin Sutcliffe
Professor of Russian
Miami University
1 Julie Fedor, “Spinning Russia’s 21st Century Wars: Zakhar Prilepin and his ‘Literary Spetsnaz’,” RUSI Journal no. 6 (2018), 18, 22.
2 “Gulag” comes from the Russian name for the Chief Directorate of Camps аnd Places of Imprisonment (Glavnoe upravlenie lagerei i mest zakliucheniia). There is a large historical debate over the number of Gulag prisoners. For an accessible overview of this mammoth system, see David Hosford, Pamela Kachurin, and Thomas Lamont, “Gulag: Soviet Prison Camps and their Legacy,” A Project of the National Park Service and the National Resource Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies, Harvard University, http://gulaghistory.org/nps/downloads/gulag-curriculum.pdf.
3 Fedor notes that in 2017 Prilepin created a group to further the patriotic image of Russia in the arts: see “Spinning Russia’s 21st Century Wars,” 21.
4 For an overview of Solovki before and after the 1917 revolution, see Roy Robson, Solovki: The Story of Russia Told Through Its Most Remarkable Islands (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004) and the official site of Solovetsky Monastery site: http://solovki-monastyr.ru/abbey/geography/.
5 Prilepin’s personal web site mixes fact with mythology as it manages his public persona: http://zaharprilepin.ru/ru/bio.html. For a short but disturbing excerpt dealing with his time in Chechnya, see “Pathologies: Zakhar Prilepin,” trans. Arch Tait, Index on Censorship no. 4 (2005).
6 On Prilepin’s contradictory activities, see Mark Lipovetsky, “Politicheskaia motorika Zakhara Prilepina,” Znamia no. 10 (2012), http://magazines.russ.ru/znamia/2012/10/li12.html. Concerning Prilepin crafting his persona, see Igor’ Frolov, “Zakon sakhraneniia strakha,” Kontinent no. 139 (2009), http://magazines.russ.ru/continent/2009/139/fr29.html. For one example of Prilepin disparaging the liberal intelligentsia, see his Live Journal post: Zakhar Prilepin, 24 July 2017, https://prilepin.livejournal.com/tag/интеллигенция.
7 For brief mention of Prilepin as poet, see Frolov. On the success of Sankya, see Tomi Huttunen and Jussi Lasila, “Zakhar Prilepin: The National Bolshevik Movement and Catachrestic Politics,” Transcultural Studies no. 12 (2016), 137. Liudmila Ulitskaia discusses Sankya with the famous liberal journalist Vladimir Pozner: “Zagadochnaia russkaia dusha. Ulitskaia-Pozner,” 18 February 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmIBSsuWwXA. See the foreword by Alexey Navalny in Prilepin, Sankya, trans. Mariya Gusev and Jeff Parker (Ann Arbor, MI, Disquiet, 2014).
8 Lipovetsky notes the connection with Lev Gudkov’s concept of negative identity, outlined in Gudkov’s Negativnaia identichnost’: Stat’i 1997–2002 godov (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2004). In discerning traits of fascism, Lipovetsky draws on Umberto Eco, “Ur-fascism,” in Five Moral Pieces, trans. Alastair McEwen (New York: Harcourt, 2002).
9 The head of Memorial in the northwest region of Karelia, for instance, was arrested several times on fictious charges: see “Zaderzhan glava karel’skogo ‘Memoriala’ Iurii Dmitriev,” Radio Liberty, 27 June 2018, https://www.svoboda.org/a/29324182.html. “Truth in Dmitriev’s case – this is what we speak up for,” message sent to the Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe, https://www.memo.ru/en-us/memorial/departments/intermemorial/news/413. See also the organization’s website: https://www.memo.ru/en-us/. Documenting the number of dead in the Gulag is contentious and complex — see, among others, Steven Blyth, “The Dead of the Gulag: An Experiment in Statistical Investigation,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society no. 3 (1995).
10 Zahar Prilepin, The Monastery, trans. Nicholas Kotar (London: Glagoslav Publishing, 2020), 115-116.
11 Cynthia Buckley, Ralph Clem, Jarod Fox, Erik Herron, “The War in Ukraine is More Devastating than You Know,” Washington Post, 4 April 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/04/09/the-war-in-ukraine-is-more-devastating-than-you-know/. On Prilepin’s earlier support for the war, see Sergei Aleksandrov, “‘Nash fil’m o Donbasse popal v long-list ‘Oskara’,” 27 June 2018, Svoi, republished in Gazeta Kul’tura, http://portal-kultura.ru/svoy/articles/zvanyy-gost/210970-zakhar-prilepin-nash-film-o-donbasse-popal-v-long-list-oskara/. On his clip, see ibid. Concerning Prilepin’s criticism of the separatists, see “Prilepin ob’iasnil pochemu on brosil voevat’ v Donbasse,” Gazeta,ru, 6 December 2018, https://news.rambler.ru/ukraine/41382899-prilepin-obyasnil-pochemu-brosil-voevat-v-donbasse/.
12 On Phone Duty, see Aleksandrov, 45. Huttunen and Lasila, 139, 151. For a wide-ranging discussion of how Putin uses masculinity, see Putin as Celebrity and Cultural Icon, ed. Helena Goscilo (London: Routledge, 2014).
13 Zakhar Prilepin, “Ot avtora,” in Doroga v dekabre. Vsia proza v odnom tome (Moscow: AST, 2012), 5.
14 Andrew Wachtel, An Obsession with History: Russian Writers Confront the Past (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1994). On celebrity culture, see Celebrity and Glamour in Contemporary Russia: Shocking Chic, eds. Helena Goscilo and Vlad Strukov (London: Routledge, 2011).
15 Mikhail Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).
16 For a discussion of the relationship between fact, fiction, and genres in The Monastery, see Benjamin Sutcliffe, “‘Pravdy ne khvataet: Obitel’ Z. Prilepina: dokumental’nost’ i roman vospitaniia,” Slovo. Journal of Slavic Languages, Literatures and Culture no. 55 (2014).