Ten years of the reign of Empress Anna Ivanovna, or Anna Ioannovna, as she is commonly called (1730–1740), are considered perhaps the darkest period in the history of Russia in the 18th century. And the empress herself did not leave a good memory in her descendants: fat, ugly, rude and ignorant - this is how she appears from the pages of numerous textbooks and historical novels depicting the horrors of the “Bironovism”, the general dominance of the Germans, the complete oblivion of the state interests of Russia... The author of this book, the famous St. Petersburg historian Evgeny Viktorovich Anisimov, tried to dispel numerous myths and misconceptions regarding the reign of Anna Ioannovna and show the Russian empress and contemporary Russia as they really were.