ABC truths

Once, a long time ago, Arkady Strugatsky called the author of this book one of the most promising young science fiction writers. But around the same time, Vladislav Petrov moved from science fiction to historical fiction and has since written several books. "Alphabetical Truths" is his most Russian novel and perhaps the most Russian novel written in the 21st century. Three and a half centuries merge into a single stream in it, the fates of heroes, both fictional and non-fictional, intertwine in a convoluted plot. They are not necessarily Russian by blood, but Russian in their way of thinking, which has seamlessly merged with Russia as a whole. After the author's first publication, he was compared to Pavich, and "Alphabetical Truths" was called a genealogical novel, which is formally correct, as it deals with a chain of generations of one family, and the author, as a link in this chain, appears as a character in the final chapter. But essentially, this is a novel about the meaning of our country's existence - sober, devoid of tipsy patriotism, and at the same time full of love for the Motherland.