This volume, which is the first scientifically prepared edition of the poet's works, includes his best poems and poems, the drama in verse "Rembrandt", as well as numerous translations from the languages of the peoples of the USSR and foreign poetry.

Rod . at the Bogodukhovsky mine, Donbass. Mind. in Tarasovka, Moscow region. His father was a railway accountant, his mother a secretary at a commercial school. Kedrin studied at the Dnepropetrovsk Institute of Communications (1922–1924). Having moved to Moscow, he worked in a factory print shop and as a literary consultant at the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house. Despite the fact that Gorky himself cried while reading Kedrin’s poem “The Doll,” the first book, “Witnesses,” was published only in 1940. Kedrin was a secret dissident during Stalin's time. Knowledge of Russian history did not allow him to idealize the years of the “great turning point.” The lines in “Alain Staritsa” - “All animals are sleeping. All people are sleeping. Only clerks execute people” - were written not just some time ago, but during the years of terror. In 1938, Kedrin wrote his most famous poem, “Architects,” under the influence of which Andrei Tarkovsky created the film “Andrei Rublev.” The “terrible royal mercy” - the eyes of the creators of St. Basil's gouged out by order of Ivan the Terrible - echoed Stalin's mercy - the merciless reprisal against the builders of the socialist utopia. It is no coincidence that Kedrin created a portrait of the leader of the Huns, Attila, a victim of his own cruelty and loneliness. (This poem was published only after Stalin’s death.) The poet wrote with pain about the tragedy of Russian geniuses who were not recognized in their own Fatherland: “And the Horse built. Who covered the villas in Luca with carving patterns, in Urbino whose big hands brought out the pillars of the cathedral?” Kedrin glorified the artist’s courage to be a ruthless judge not only of his time, but also of himself. “How poorly drawn this god is!” - this is what Kedrin’s Rembrandt exclaims in the drama of the same name. During the war, the poet was a war correspondent. But knowledge of history helped him understand that victory is also a kind of temple, whose builders can have their eyes gouged out. Kedrin was thrown out of the train vestibule near Tarasovka by unknown killers. But we can assume that this was not just an accident. The “secretaries” could well have sent their henchmen.