Daring empire. Minds, clothes and life of the Petrine era. Berdnikov L.I.

XVIII century is the most mysterious and fascinating period in the history of Russia. He reveals before us the curious and often unexpected pages of that glorious era, when the faces between the performance and life itself are erased, when everything turns into a large costume ball with its intrigues and palace secrets. The fate of the whole galaxy of the heroes of the past times, with the names loud and completely forgotten now, can be traced. At the same time, even familiar characters - Peter I, Franz Lefort, Alexander Menshikov, Ekaterina I, Anna Ioannovna, Elizaveta Petrovna, Ekaterina II, Ivan Shuvalov, Pavel I - are shown as impudent legislators of new fashion and new form of behavior. Peter the Great tried to introduce a European way of life on Russian land. But he took root hard: everything sometimes looked ridiculous and ridiculous. Curious wedding circuits, which brought a young couple to his faithful death in an ice house, festivities furnished in a joke manner - all this gave in barbarism and cruelty. Why this happened, read in the book of the historian and culturalist of Lev Berdnikov.