Such a thing would not even come to the Strugatsky brothers: Eduard Verkin, "The Magpie on the Gallows." M.: Eksmo, 2025.
The division of contemporary Russian literature into two camps – Russian and émigré – is happening even faster and more harshly than one could have predicted.
The metropolis does not notice the exiles – not least out of fear: in the émigré mainstream, the tone is set by those declared foreign agents, or even extremists-terrorists. Relocants could theoretically afford a broader outlook, but their community increasingly resembles a sect.
"Novaya Gazeta Europe" declares in the very first sentence of its extensive review: "the main books in Russian in 2025 were published outside of Russia." The annual review by "Meduza" included new releases published in it, but not just any – for example, the novel "James" by Percival Everett: a retelling of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" with a black slave at the center of the plot.
However, in this review – not a word about "The Magpie on the Gallows" by Eduard Verkin. Meanwhile, the novel received the first prize at the "Big Book" award last year – the main Russian literary award.
When in 2024 it was awarded to "Odsun" by Alexei Varlamov, emigration not only noticed this but reacted vigorously (not always in a censored manner): in the novel by Varlamov, who remained in his homeland and is still the rector of the Literary Institute, the Sudeten Germans are mentioned with sympathy, while the Ukrainian heroine is not impressed. But just a year later, the award was largely ignored abroad.
Perhaps it is also because for many who left in 2022, Verkin is a little-known or peripheral name. Over twenty years of his career, he has written a lot under his own name and the pseudonym Max Ostrogin and received a dozen awards, but – niche ones: awarded for children's literature and science fiction.
Only since the late 2010s has Verkin been writing adult, strange novels that are welcomed by the literary establishment of the metropolis – but again, formally fantastic novels: "Sakhalin Island," "snark snark," and now "The Magpie on the Gallows," whose title is borrowed from a painting by Bruegel the Elder.
The action takes place in a rather recognizable, seemingly utopian future (reviewers mention the "World of Noon" by the Strugatsky brothers) with cosmic expansion. A Grand Jury gathers on a distant planet to decide the fate of certain fateful research. Half of the Jury consists of such "jurors": randomly selected ordinary citizens. The main character is one of them: a taiga rescuer. However, to reach the destination, one must die several times briefly. And when you finally resurrect, good luck figuring out why everything and everyone around is so strange…
