This book is the first part of a two-volume book dedicated to Russian literature of the twentieth century. Each chapter is a page of history through the eyes of writers and poets who have witnessed the main events of the era in which they happened to live and create. The first volume included lectures on the works of such prominent personalities as Chekhov, Gorky, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Platonov, Nabokov and others. Dmitry Bykov seems to be returning us to the year in which this or that book was created. The book was created based on the popular program "One hundred lectures with Dmitry Bykov."