The first grand prize of this literary season, that awarded by the French Academy, rewarded Thursday the Franco-Italian writer Giuliano Da Empoli for the Kremlin Mage (Gallimard) a book which, for us, will undoubtedly go down in history as a great, very great novel. It is also on most lists of literary prizes, including the Goncourt, when it was published in April, proof that it had made an impression. It is because this text, which was completed in 2021, gives us the staggering account of the mental system and the warrior logic of Vladimir Putin. In a way, it recounts everything that prompted the Russian president to invade Ukraine on February 24. A text that must be read, we wrote on May 6, if we want to understand what, from France, seems incomprehensible.
Be careful, this is not a geopolitical essay, it’s a real novel, of immense literary and historical quality, with colorful characters and an atmosphere that remain in the memory long after we have turned the last page. Its hero, the famous “Mage of the Kremlin”, is called Vladimir Baranov. Eminence grise of Vladimir Putin, he spent years observing the former KGB agent before resigning – he had seen enough, the comedy of power no longer amused him – and disappearing into the wild, becoming a legend. Nature in the literal sense of the term, moreover, since he retired to a Chekhov-style house hidden in a birch forest near Moscow. The narrator, an academic determined to find out more about this myth that Baranov has become, ends up finding him and making him speak, in the heart of an office-library which is a writer’s dream. And Baranov will tell Putin. And that’s where the magic happens: everything that Giuliano Da Empoli tells him corresponds almost word for word to the tragedy that has occupied us for eight months. Baranov is directly inspired by a real character, Vladislav Surkov, actually nicknamed “Kremlin’s Rasputin” who advised Vladimir Putin for many years before being stripped of his duties and placed under house arrest in Moscow. We also come across a number of real characters in this story, such as the businessmen Boris Berezovsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky who both experienced the golds of the Kremlin and disgrace.
Fascinated and enthusiastic about this book, we had sought, after reading it, to understand how a Franco-Italian had been able to pierce so finely the Russian psyche, at least that of Vladimir Poutine, which is so difficult to approach for a foreigner. Italian born in Paris, raised between Brussels, Rome and Paris where he teaches at Sciences Po, Giuliano Da Empoli had explained to us that he had himself practiced men of power for a long time when he was political adviser to Matteo Renzi, mayor of Florence then Prime Minister in Rome. Before the Kremlin Magus, written directly in French, he has moreover published essays on powerful men such as Barack Obama or certain populist leaders. Moreover, Russia is a country that fascinates him, he told us. “I go there often and I was able to meet Putin’s advisers. That’s what made me want to get into Surkov’s brain. All the facts are real but the characters are imagined from all these experiences, and also from mine with Renzi. Basically, the logic of power is quite similar everywhere. The court phenomena around the king, the president or the tsar are timeless.
After the awarding, on Wednesday, of the December prize to Lola Lafon for When you listen to this song (Stock) that Libé had greatly appreciated when it was released, last August, this awards season got off to a good start. The Mage of the Kremlin can he win the Goncourt now that he has been awarded the Grand Prix of the French Academy? Many people are asking the question today. Since literary prizes are designed to encourage readers to buy as many different books as possible, this seems complicated. But for an exceptional novel, an exceptional destiny, perhaps.