The new novel by the famous Russian writer Anatoly Ananyev is dedicated to one of the most difficult eras in Russian history and to an equally complex and controversial figure standing at the center of the era - Tsar Ivan the Terrible. The structure of the novel is multifaceted and very consonant with the problems that concern our society today. Eternal problems - power and society, power and morality, power and religion, man in the world - the writer examines in the novel through a system of complex relationships and reflections of historical real characters. The artistic feature of this novel is the dominance of the characters’ internal monologues, they are the main engine of content development. Philosophical problems of existence, religious aspects of a person’s relationship with the world, with people, with God, moral ideas and way of life and thoughts, the “mentality”, as we now say, of the characters - all this distinguishes the novel from ordinary historical chronicles, where the description of events and actions The characters form the basis of the plot. This book is not easy to read, but it will certainly be read by people today thinking about the fate of Russia, about its past, present and future. Anatoly Ananyev was born in 1925. Author of the novels “Tanks are moving in a diamond pattern” (1963), “Milestones of Love” (1971), “Years without War” (1985), “Tablets and Bells” (1988). Editor-in-chief of the magazine "October".