The work of A. N. Tolstoy is truly multifaceted: a master of the historical novel, science fiction prose, the author of numerous novellas, short stories and plays. The key theme in the writer’s work turned out to be Russia, its history, its purpose. “Walking in Torment” (1921–1941) is a trilogy about the fate of the Russian intelligentsia on the eve and after the October Revolution (the novels “Sisters”, “The Eighteenth Year”, “Gloomy Morning”), the heroes of the epic become witnesses to the most important events of the twentieth century. According to the author, “Walking through Torment” is “the walk of the author’s conscience through suffering, hopes, delights, falls, despondency, ups - a feeling of a whole huge era, beginning on the eve of the First World War and ending with the first day of the Second World War.”