Voronkova wrote her first historical story in the late sixties, already being a famous children's writer. This kind of work fascinated her, and she wrote several more stories based on plots drawn from Pausanias, Thucydides, Plutarch: “The Messenian Wars” (about the fate of the people of a small Hellenic country), “Son of Zeus” and “In the mists of time” (about Alexander the Great) and, finally, “The Hero of Salamis” (about Themistocles). Voronkova did not see foreign countries, but her imagination and writing skills worked wonders, allowing both the author and readers to turn into eyewitnesses of ancient and distant events.