In this book by the eminent writer Lev Berdnikov appear scenes from the Russian eighteenth century - the orgies of the All-Jesting, All-Drunken Assembly where Peter the Great reigned; the comic funerals of dwarfs; the reading of panegyric sonnets at the Court of Empress Anna Ivanovna; and the riotous masquerades or "metamorphoses" of the autocratic fashion-plate Elizabeth Petrovna. The author traces the fate of an entire galaxy of heroes of bygone days, whose names, renowned in their day, are completely forgotten today. Attention is also paid to Russian poets' conquest of the capricious and...