We study the restricted category 𝒪 for an affine Kac–Moody algebra at the critical level. In particular, we prove the first part of the Feigin–Frenkel conjecture: the linkage principle for restricted Verma modules. Moreover, we prove a version of the Bernstein–Gelfand–Gelfand-reciprocity principle and we determine the block decomposition of the restricted category 𝒪. For the proofs, we need a deformed version of the classical structures, so we mostly work in a relative setting.

We compute the algebras of self-extensions of the vacuum module and the Verma modules over an affine Kac–Moody algebra $\hat{\mathfrak g}$ in suitable categories of Harish-Chandra modules. We show that at the critical level these algebras are isomorphic to the algebras of differential forms on various spaces of opers associated to the Langlands dual Lie algebra of ${\mathfrak g}$, whereas away from the critical level they become trivial. These results rely on and generalize the description of the corresponding algebras of endomorphisms obtained by Feigin and Frenkel and the description of the corresponding graded versions due to Fishel, Grojnowski and Teleman.