The second volume of the collected works of the Silver Age classic Boris Zaitsev (1881–1972) presents works of a milestone period - those that were created on the eve of social upheavals in Russia in 1917, and those that made up his first books in exile after 1922. Time “quiet dawns” and the transcendental happiness of people, exploded by wars and bloody coups, is the main theme of the writer’s reflections in such masterpieces as the story “Blue Star”, short stories and poems “St. Nicholas”, “Seclusion”, “White Light”, tragic short stories “Strange Journey”, “Avdotya-Death”, “Nicholas of California”. The appendices contain memoir essays of the writer and an article by the “poet of criticism” Yu. I. Aikhenvald - the best of everything written about Zaitsev.