The historical novel by Gennady Prashkevich, one of the most prominent Siberian writers, “The Secret Deacon” is unique in its emotional impact on the reader. This novel can be compared to a piece of music, so clear is the structure and rhythm of the prose, and the language of the narrative is original and global. Dramatic collisions, so necessary in the novel, are presented compositionally flawlessly, and timely, masterful switching of intonation registers creates a real picture. The rumble of the past reaches our days. Russia, XVII century. The Russians are just heading towards the Pacific Ocean, striving for the mysterious land of Aponia. The main character of the novel is clerk Ivan Krestinin, quietly yearning for distant countries, pouring vodka on both his boredom and his dream, for thirty years he was content with redrawing other people’s maps, but then something happened in his fatal event in life. And he went to the ends of the earth through the vast northern expanses of Siberia. The ability to understand other people more than once brought him out of terrible disasters. Acutely feeling the truth, he begins to see the world in a new way, the feelings themselves are now experienced differently by him. Little-known, non-trivial historical events described by Gennady Prashkevich in the novel “The Secret Clerk” become real History. After all, history consists of many little things.