Dispassionate time blurs the boundaries between real events and fiction. After many tens and hundreds of years, it is sometimes difficult to figure out where the real facts that took place in reality end and legends - a colorful creation of folklore - begin. History is created not on the battlefield, but in the quiet of offices by completely different people, while real heroes rarely leave memoirs. That is why this book, which contains not only the memories of eyewitnesses of those ancient events, but also folk legends about them, was called “The Legend of the Hetman.” The second volume of the novel “The Legend of the Hetman” was published in June 2013. However, since it was published in Canada, Russian readers are unlikely to get acquainted with it. Therefore, I leave the general file for reading in electronic form