The monograph is dedicated to the fate of Cervantes' novel Don Quixote in Russia as one of the rare examples in the history of culture of turning the literary phenomenon of one country into the dominant cultural and social life of another. The author shows that in Russia in Don Quixote they saw not just a brilliant book, but a parable about human destiny, but in the Knight of the Sad Image - a prophet or false prophet, the myth of which can serve as the key to the events of Russian intellectual and public life. Countless Russian interpretations of Cervantes' novel and the image of its protagonist were aimed at a contemporary, performed in Russian culture of the 18th-19th centuries. primarily moral tasks. Some facets of this still ongoing process are devoted to the book. For philologists, a wide range of readers.