L. Lazarev is a literary critic and journalist of the older generation, a front-line soldier, one of the “New World” authors, editor-in-chief of the most authoritative literary periodical, the journal Voprosy Literatury, where he worked for almost four decades. Lazar Ilyich was a participant and witness to many remarkable events of our literary life in the “thaw” and “stagnation” years, he knew well (and had friendly relations with many) the writers who were the rulers of the thoughts of that time.