“My 20th century: the happiness of being yourself” is a unique book both in content and in terms of genre; covering events from December 1956 to the present time. In December 1956, Viktor Petelin gave a report “On the artistic method”, in which he stated that the method of socialist realism is a brake on the development of Russian literature, wrote a brilliant article “Two Grigory Melekhov”, in which, as F.A. Abramov and V.V. Gura, “drawing a completely positive character of Gregory,” with great difficulty published the book “The Humanism of Sholokhov”, in articles about M.A. Bulgakov, which took place with enormous complications, showed the Russian national face of an outstanding artist back in the late 60s, published a series of articles about the Russian national character “Russia is my love”... The author talks about his luck: to the publishing house “Soviet Writer” one after another came the young Vasily Belov, Evgeny Nosov, Viktor Astafiev, who brought their unique experience to literature; With great difficulty, the author had to “punch through” their books, which have become classics of our literature. The author talks about events and people, using original documents, widely drawing on letters from Viktor Astafiev, Vasily Belov, Evgeny Nosov, Konstantin Vorobyov, Grigory Konovalov, Anatoly Ivanov, Pyotr Proskurin, Vladimir Karpenko, Sergei Malashkin and other outstanding writers of the 20th century with whom she brought his happy destiny. On the pages of the book appear images of contemporaries of the era, with their pains and passions, with their creative achievements and failures, when the writer happened to betray himself... What a joy it is to be yourself! The book will be received with interest by both philological specialists and wider circles readers interested in the history of Russian literature, the history of editorial offices, the fate of writers devoted to Russia and who experienced all the troubles caused by the highest party leadership, editors and censorship.