“Letters to a Provincial” (1656–1657), one of the brightest works of French literature, was practically inaccessible to the Russian-speaking reader for exactly a century. Encyclopedia of culture of the 17th century, an important fragment of the polemic between the Jesuits and Jansenists regarding the interpretation of Christian morality, brilliant expression of theological issues through the means of secular literature - these are a few of the definitions of the book, which put Blaise Pascal on a par with such polemicists as Montaigne and Voltaire. Supplemented with classical notes by Nicolas and modern commentaries, the publication becomes the most important source for understanding the European historical and philosophical process of the last three centuries .