The name of the most popular fiction writer Vasily Petrovich Avenarius is known almost exclusively in children's literature. He was not a writer by profession and worked on his works very slowly. Almost all of his works, in particular historical novels and stories, were adapted for reading by teenagers; they contain more adventures and descriptions of everyday life than the psychology of the characters. Avenarius was published so rarely in post-revolutionary Russia that only historians and literary scholars know his name. Meanwhile, this is an intelligent and prolific author who had a complete understanding of what he was writing about. This volume includes two historical stories that make up the duology “Under the German Yoke”: “Bironovshchina” - about a year and a half of the reign of Anna Ioannovna, and “Two Regency ", covering the entire reign of Duke Biron and Princess Anna Leopoldovna.