The 20th century did not dawn a single day before July 28, 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War.
It was unmistakably foreshadowed and marked by the political developments in Russia and the Russian Revolution. Through the narrative of a former muzhik who eventually became a trusted confidant of Prince Stroganov—an intimate friend and advisor to the last tsar—the course of Russian history is depicted, from the build-up to the Great War to the Revolution.
This is the story of a man whose life journey, with its upheavals, contradictions, and constant struggle with the dilemmas of an adventurous existence, becomes a quest for genuine expression—the search for the authentic essence of being.

As the events of Russian society’s path toward the overthrow of the tsarist regime and the emblematic revolution unfold, the narrative highlights the inevitable inertia that gripped the “elites,” rooted largely in arrogance and a belief in the unchangeable and untouchable nature of their privileges and dominance.
The book serves as a reminder of the ultimate delusion that afflicts societies and their leaders: the illusion of unshakable stability, the enduring “truth” of their reality—truths that, over time, fade, collapse, and are buried under the ruins of disappointment and negation, swept away by the fatal and heartrending force of upheaval.

This historical novel seeks to remind us of the mutable and unstable nature of human existence, the merciless face of fate, and to recognize in our present time the signs of an impending collapse of the saturated certainties of a long-suffering “now.”