Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin (1892 – 1977) is a Russian Soviet writer, laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree for the novels “First Joys” (1945) and “An Extraordinary Summer” (1947–1948). In 1921, Fedin joined the Serapion Brothers community, professing the realistic traditions of Russian classics. His literary talent was appreciated by Boris Pasternak, Stefan Zweig and Maxim Gorky, with whom Fedin had friendly relations. The novel “Cities and Years” was first published in 1924. The action of the novel takes place during the First World War, revolutions, and the Civil War. The main character is Andrei Startsov, an artist and intellectual of a bygone era, an “extra person” of his generation. He feels like “a speck among the huge masses of machine-like inevitabilities moving.” After reading “Cities and Years,” you can... not only read nothing more about the imperialist war and revolution, but somehow immediately get an idea of everything. Perhaps Fedin’s novel - the most successful (in terms of clarity) example of a novel on the famous topic “Intellectuals and Revolution”: what should a person who does not want to kill do during a revolution" - © Dmitry Bykov