Prince Serebryanny

The work by Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy presented for your attention is part of the “Poets in Verse and Prose” series, which includes a variety of genres: epics, ballads, parables, songs, sketches, and poems, as well as the author’s most widely known work—the historical novel “Prince Serebryany. The Chronicle of the Times of Ivan the Terrible.” Tolstoy was inspired to write “Prince Serebryany” by his interest in historical songs about the reign of Ivan IV. The writer dreamed of depicting the harsh times of the “terrible” tsar, when the silent Russian people were forced to endure all the horrors of the oprichnina. He was only able to begin working on the novel after the death of Nicholas I. In the writer’s opinion, another tsar-tyrant would surely have seen the parallel drawn between himself and Ivan IV. Tolstoy might have paid too high a price for his “freedoms.” The work is full of drama: tragic love, devotion to the fatherland, the search for one’s path... the writer vividly depicted the horrors of the oprichnina and the tyranny of Ivan the Terrible over his own people....