The Russian novels brainwashing teens into enlisting

Telegraph

31-05-2025

A new sinister genre of nationalistic fantasy fiction is on the rise in Russia, targeting the country's most impressionable demographic.
Teenagers and young men are being pulled into patriotic fervour by 'Z literature', which delivers a simple message: enlist, fight, and glorify the Russian state.
The books, a reference to the 'Z' symbol used to promote the invasion of Ukraine, have echoes of the heavy handed propaganda of the Soviet Union.
'What the state is trying to do to create a culture in which everyday life is militarised,' Dr Colin Alexander, senior lecturer in political communications at Nottingham Trent University, told The Telegraph.
'It is normalising the idea that to be a good citizen, a good patriot, a good man, you go and fight in the war, because Russia is surrounded by enemies.'
Z literature books have illustrated covers showing soldiers mid-charge, framed by firestorms, tanks and Russian flags.
They purport a world where Russia is surrounded by enemies, its soldiers the only hope in the face of Nazis, with tales of brotherhood and glory in death as plot lines.
The books are stocked in mainstream bookstores, discussed in Russian media, appear in schools and have even been shared by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the deceased Wagner leader.
'The environment, the culture, is just suffused with this material,' said Ian Garner, assistant professor of totalitarian studies at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw.
'Militarism becomes normalised. And for some young Russians it becomes pretty much all they ever see.'
In the Soviet era, posters and busts of figures such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and heroic workers or soldiers were part of everyday life.
Children were targeted with toys and figurines depicting Red Army soldiers or cosmonauts.
Today, the focus is on shaping teenagers and young people with media, be it in paperback or online.
According to Dr Alexander, Z literature is targeted specifically at young men and teenagers who will soon be the focus of enlistment drives to boost Russia's presence in Ukraine.
He added that the content especially appeals to those who might be disenfranchised and vulnerable to ideologies that promise strength, belonging and a sense of purpose.
In the novel Colonel Nobody, by Alexei Sukonkin, a down-and-out young man changes his life for the better by joining the Wagner Group upon his release from prison where he follows a redemption arc, finding a new sense of brotherhood and ultimately sacrificing his life for the cause.
'There is often a sense of brotherhood, that you can turn into a good citizen, a good patriot, a strong man, a man who can provide for his family, a man who defends the country and the community,' said Dr Garner.
The books often carry the message that Russia is the only country fighting for a better world and that it is completely alone in doing so.
'The message is very clear in these books: Russia is fated to be attacked by outside powers,' said Dr Garner.
Mikhail Mikheev's White Z on the Front Armour follows this theme, with a brutal Russian agent, posing as a liberal journalist, infiltrating Ukraine after the full-scale invasion.
He travels across the country, killing evil characters and delivering one-liners including: 'You wanted Crimea, pigface?'
'The underlying narrative is always that Russia as a state, as a country, has been wrong in the past, and through these heroes, we can rectify Russia's greatness and its destiny,' said Jaroslava Barbieri, a doctoral researcher into Russian foreign policy and post-Soviet affairs at the University of Birmingham.
The characters in are often a mirror image of iconic heroes in Western action films.
Crimean Cauldron by Nikolai Marchuk reads like a fever-dream rewrite of the 1985 film Commando, where a lone Russian hero, in true Arnold Schwarzenegger style, kills the enemy by the dozen to emerge in glory.
It depicts a world where everyone, including North Korea, has turned against Russia, which is fighting against Nazis in Crimea and ultimately ends the war by seizing the Capitol Building in Washington DC.
In PMC Chersonesus by Andrei Belyanin, a group of heroes undertake a mission to return artefacts and museum treasures to Crimea.
The trio, modelled upon Greek gods Aphrodite, Heracles, and Dionysus, encounter evil figures and even zombie Nazis.
The final mission involves stealing Scythian gold from the Netherlands, referencing real treasures awarded to Ukraine by Dutch courts and never returned to Russian-occupied Crimea.
'The most extraordinary aspect of this sub-genre of science fiction is that we have these characters that travel back in time intending to rewrite history,' said Ms Barbieri, commenting on PMC Chersonesus.
'Imagine you've read about these artefacts, and then it will pop up somewhere in the news about cultural items that they claim are Russian.
'In this very subversive way, the sub-genre reinforces broader propaganda, disinformation narratives that will then be amplified through the media landscape.'
The books are part of a larger propaganda ecosystem that includes patriotic education, youth military clubs and pro-war digital content, all aimed at fostering support for the war in Ukraine.
Experts warned that the long-term outcome could be detrimental to ever achieving peace with Russia, as young people are trained to see violence as the answer to conflict.
'It means that Russia can't be liberalised. It can't be democratised overnight,' said Dr Garner.
Ms Barbieri added: 'Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers. The Kremlin isn't trying to appease aggression – it's cultivating it.'