Literature and geopolitics go together in one of the most powerful publishing phenomena of recent years. El mag de lKremlin, the Catalan and Spanish versions of which have just been published (Edicions 62 and Seix Barral), has sold half a million copies in France. Giuliano da Empoli (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1973), Swiss and Italian political consultant, has drawn a psychological and sociological portrait that helps to understand post-Soviet Russia, Vladimir Putin’s regime and the reasons for the war in Ukraine. “My mother speaks Russian and she forced me to read Russian novels when I was little, even though I didn’t understand them – explains the author-. This was my first relationship with Russia.”
A Goncourt finalist – after a controversial tie-breaker – and winner of the French Academy and Balzac prizes, the novel recreates the story of a close adviser to Putin, Vladislav Surkov (in fiction, Vadim Baranov). He finished it before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and did not retouch it because “the war does not change anything in my book, it only changes the way it is read”. Da Empoli was an adviser to Matteo Renzi when the latter led the Italian government. We ask him if he was the magician at Chigi Palace (the Prime Minister’s residence) and he laughs. “Given the results, I wouldn’t say that; there wasn’t that much magic”, he replies, referring to the short-lived mandate of his boss.
After writing many essays, it is his first novel. Is fiction better in this case?
I didn’t write a novel to get away from reality, but to get closer to it. I prepared the book as if it were an essay, with a lot of research, but an essay has a limit and you have to stop. The novel is the only instrument to try to get into the heads of the characters.
Do you know if Putin has read it?
No, I think he has other things to do in Moscow.
What would you think if you read it?
I think he would not like to appear as a pure animal of power. A great writer, Elias Canetti, author of Mass and Power, said that the man of power is someone who, deep down, wants to outlive everyone and the only way is by killing them, including the people closest to him to him. For me, this is somewhat the representation of Putin that I give in the book. I don’t think he liked that.
The book says that Russians have a holistic concept of power. can you explain
It means everything is mixed. We separate the various spheres, the public, the private, business, politics, the exercise of violence. In Russia everything is mixed and what matters, in reality, even if there is a lot of talk about the nouveau riche, the oligarchs, is power and proximity to power. Proximity to the Kremlin and power is the source of everything in Russia. It has always been. It is also the source of money, of social status, with violence mixed in there. That’s what I’m talking about.
The magician of the Kremlin works not only to preserve the monopoly of power, but also “the monopoly of subversion”.
It is the idea that one must manage anger and prevent it from building up, but give voice to that anger so that it can be vented, including controlling forms of contestation and subversion. The magician is helped by the fact that he used to be a theater man. He stages a theater where he not only controls the Government but everything. It creates false parties, false opposition or youth movements to channel anger, to manage it so that it does not turn against power. It is almost an artistic performance, almost avant-garde theatre.
When Putin speaks, he says that “the Russians ask only two things from the State, order at home and power abroad.”
Yes, this is his conception. It’s what he thinks and what he does. We see today that the war is not going well, obviously, neither for the Russians nor for Putin, but he tries to justify the sacrifices in the name of the external power of Russia that he wants to project. And this is something that was already done in the past in the Soviet Union. For now it allows him to still be able to control the country. Even if it goes badly, this war has been an opportunity for Putin to strengthen his dominance at home in a considerable way.
Putin maintains that the USSR did not lose the Cold War, it simply stopped because its society brought down a dictatorship. Is it really what you think?
Yes, it’s a big misunderstanding. That’s why I wrote this book. Our interpretation of the last thirty years is very different from that of many Russians, or at least that of Putin and his circle. There is a lot of distance. Carl Schmitt said that the mistake of the winner is that he has no curiosity about the loser. Many Russians think, and they are right to think so, that it was not defeated militarily in 1989, that there was a process inside Russia that led to reforms, to bringing down the system, replacing it with a another, and the disintegration of the USSR. Observing this point of view is a very interesting experience. This is not to justify what they do, to be clear, but it is important to understand.
The play does not give a very positive image of the United States. His behavior appears cynical, especially with regard to Ukraine. The protagonist and Putin say so. Do you think so too?
No. I explain this a bit in the book when I say that Putin was engaged in counterintelligence. He wasn’t just a spy. The spy looks for truthful information, while the counter-spy sees conspiracies everywhere. Putin sees only part of the reality. Are there any US activities in Ukraine to distance it from Russia? Yes, it is clear. But there is also a democratic aspiration of a majority of the Ukrainian population who want to decide for themselves and who do so spontaneously. Putin sees only one side of reality.
The protagonist does not like being banned from traveling to the West. This is the situation today for people who have money in Russia. You use the concept of “exile in reverse”. Do you think this can weaken Putin and be dangerous for him?
Unfortunately, I think that’s exactly what Putin wanted. He couldn’t stand that even people close to him had a life in London, in the south of Spain. He wanted everyone in his bunker with him. He wants the Russian elites locked in this bunker and forced to align with his position. So far the operation has worked. We’ll see if it lasts.
The ending gives a rather pessimistic view, not only of Russia, but in general, because of the absolute power of machines, robots, transhumanism. What means?
My book is not just a book about Russia. Above all, it is a book about power in general and its evolution. I believe that, indeed, these technologies of military origin that we use, such as the internet, GPS and soon artificial intelligence, are control technologies in their primary function. The risk of the future is not so much that the machines rebel against man, but that man obeys the orders of the machines too much. Even a dictator must reach an agreement with his generals, with part of the population. But to rule a society with machines you don’t need to get anyone’s agreement. That’s what scares me.
