Pearls of secular literature of the Russian Middle Ages XII – XV centuries. The poetic “Zadonshchina” and the furious “The Tale of the Massacre of Mamayev”, the heartbreaking “The Tale of the Ruin of Ryazan by Batu” and the mysterious, full of literary riddles and secrets “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”... They were copied by hand for centuries, read and re-read, commented on and discussed. Their manuscripts burned along with the estates and monasteries, and individual copies survived only by miracle, in order to convey to us not in dry and indifferent, but in the bright, emotional, artistic perception of the mostly nameless geniuses of the Russian word, the great and dramatic history of Rus' - with its feudal civil strife and complex, ambiguous relations with the Great Steppe, the national tragedy of the Mongol-Tatar yoke and the great national upsurge that made it possible to finally throw off this yoke. Works in which the past of Rus' comes to life.

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