He was called a genius and a usurper, a brilliant administrator and a deceiver, the creator of “Potemkin villages.” Catherine II wrote about him as a “real nobleman”, a “great man” who did not fulfill even half of his plans. The first domestic scientific biography of His Serene Highness Prince Potemkin-Tauride, the secret husband of the Empress, was created on the basis of many years of archival research by the author. It is distinguished from its analogues by its deep disclosure of the era, its focus on documents rather than historical anecdotes, and its vivid style. Having plunged on the pages of the book into the brilliant world of the “golden age” of Catherine the Great, having witnessed court intrigues and secret diplomatic clashes, exciting love stories and bloody battles of the Second Russian-Turkish War, the reader will be able to draw his own conclusion about who the “magnificent prince of Taurida” was ", an evil genius, as his enemies called him, or a great statesman.