The most unfortunate of human lives can be called the life of the hero of this book, the infant emperor Ivan VI Antonovich (reign of 1740-1741). Guilty only of being born the heir to the Russian throne, who became tsar at the age of two months, he reigned for just over a year, was overthrown and, together with his family, was taken into custody. The rest of his life - and he lived incomplete twenty-four years - the unfortunate spent in captivity, and the last eight years - in the solitary confinement of the Shlisselburg fortress. The famous Petersburg historian, author of many remarkable studies on Russian history of the 18th century, Yevgeny Viktorovich Anisimov, talks about the tragic fate of the "third emperor" and about Russia of his time in his new book.