July 07, 2025

Fiction Stranger Than Life


Fiction Stranger Than Life
Z symbol, Krasnodar Military School Russian Ministry of Defence, Wikimedia Commons

“Z literature” continues to grow.

Named after the “Z” symbol – a letter that has come to represent support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the genre refers to Russian books that push nationalistic sentiment through fantasy and science-fiction. 

Within Z literature is a trope known as popadantsy, “accidental travel.” In this trope, a central character travels back in time to a historical period to intervene and alter the trajectory of Russian history. The books are known to be crude, often not written by professional authors, and usually ending in the glory and triumph of Russia over the rest of the world. The popularity of Z literature, especially popadantsy, is growing among male Russian teens.

The genre might most closely resemble wartime fanfiction. Translations of the works seldom exist, but summaries by scholars and reporters studying the phenomenon can be found.

Sergej Sumlenny, political scientist and founder of the European Resilience Initiative Center, took to X in 2022 to call out dangerous trend. One example Summlenny cited was the book "Tsar of the Future," in which “a guy wakes up in a body of the Russian emperor Nicholas II, prevents the Russian Revolution, defeats Great Britain, and conquers Istanbul.”

An article by Mediazona exploring the genre offered a few summaries of other books. One, "Studies in Black," written by AI entrepreneur Olga Uskova, follows a character (with the same name as the author) who develops AI versions of Russia’s leaders, including Putin. In this universe, Putin is recovering from an assassination attempt while all other prominent leaders have conveniently been poisoned.

These time-travel alternate-universe fantasies allow authors to imagine ludicrous triumphs for the Russian state. Most frightening is their appeal to teens – the demographic most needed for enlistment.

Clearly the genre is part the rise of intense Russian nationalism, warping time and space to create an adventure narrative, while warping the "hero" story so as to glorify the Russian state and paint the rest of the world as antagonists.

You Might Also Like

A Pro-War Childhood?
  • October 31, 2024

A Pro-War Childhood?

Russian children are being instilled with militant patriotism through plays, stories, cartoons, and toys.
Lord of War's Fandom
  • July 25, 2024

Lord of War's Fandom

Russian teenagers continue to idolize PMC Wagner’s Yevgeny Prigozhin, even after his death.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Moscow and Muscovites

Moscow and Muscovites

Vladimir Gilyarovsky's classic portrait of the Russian capital is one of Russians’ most beloved books. Yet it has never before been translated into English. Until now! It is a spectactular verbal pastiche: conversation, from gutter gibberish to the drawing room; oratory, from illiterates to aristocrats; prose, from boilerplate to Tolstoy; poetry, from earthy humor to Pushkin. 
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Woe From Wit (bilingual)

Woe From Wit (bilingual)

One of the most famous works of Russian literature, the four-act comedy in verse Woe from Wit skewers staid, nineteenth century Russian society, and it positively teems with “winged phrases” that are essential colloquialisms for students of Russian and Russian culture.
Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Dostoyevsky Bilingual

Bilingual series of short, lesser known, but highly significant works that show the traditional view of Dostoyevsky as a dour, intense, philosophical writer to be unnecessarily one-sided. 
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955