According to Kozma Prutkov: “You cannot embrace the immensity.” However, the desire for this, in essence, determines the process of understanding the world. The book you hold in your hands is a good help on your chosen path. Facts that come to the attention of the author are sometimes completely unknown to a wide circle of readers, and sometimes they are covered in Russian literature in a completely different way. However, among the undoubted advantages of Guido Knopp’s work is the ability to see the great in the small and with a capacious, precise touch to make one feel the breath of time. What you read makes it possible to see the past century in its chaotic ambiguity more vividly and more voluminously. Vladimir Sverzhin