The story of the transformation of a Russian peasant son into a Jew in the novel “Milady Rothman” still remains one of Lichutin’s mysteries. What is this - the phantasmagoria of perestroika? The author’s literary masquerade on the verge of a postmodern game with models that do not fit in reality? An attempt at an adventurous picaresque novel on a new historical basis? At the center of the novel is not only the love story and marriage of the poet Ivan Zhukov-Rotman and the music teacher Milka-Milady, but also the author’s hidden dialogue with the female soul of Russia, which succumbed to strange novelties in the hope of happiness.