Soviet classic Konstantin Fedin for almost twenty years headed the Union of Writers of the USSR. Through the fate of the "Minister of Soviet Literature," the author traces the "pulse" and riddles of the era. Along with Fedin, the heroes of the book are M. Gorky, I. Stalin, L. Beria, N. Khrushchev, apparatchiks of the Central Committee and security agencies, naturalist V. Vernadsky, I. Bunin, A. Tolstoy, E. Zamyatin, Stefan Zweig, B. Pasternak, A. Akhmatova, A. Tvardovsky, A. Solzhenitsyn, as well as writers of a younger generation. Yu. Trifonov, beloved of Fedin's students, poets A. Voznesensky, E. Evtushenko... The author also freely uses the memoir arsenal - he uses his own correspondence with K. Fedin in the book and observations from many years of meetings with him. A recognized biographer and researcher of the past, who published more than thirty books, Yuri Oklyansky conducts historical searches vividly and fascinatingly...