Yuri Druzhnikov went from a Soviet journalist, dissident writer, emigrant to a professor of Slavic studies at the University of California. Along with the sensational anti-Soviet novels first published in the West, he wrote a trilogy-study “Prisoner of Russia” about the life and death of Pushkin. This theme is continued in this book of polemical essays, where many myths about the poet are debunked and traditional Pushkin studies are challenged. In his “independent investigations,” which are somewhat scandalous, Druzhnikov challenges the generally accepted parameters of Pushkin’s growth, the mythologized image of Arina Rodionovna, and, most importantly, the reasons for his family conflict, which led to mutual misfortune, clearly calling into question the question of how long life would have lasted poet, if the duel with Dantes had been avoided.