"Letters to the Provincial" (1656-1657), one of the brightest works of French literature, were practically inaccessible to the Russian reader for exactly a century. The encyclopedia of culture of the 17th century, an important fragment of the controversy between Jesuits and Jansenists over the interpretation of Christian morality, a brilliant expression of theological issues by means of secular literature - these are few of the definitions of the book that put Blaise Pascal on a par with such polemicists as Montaigne and Voltaire. Supplemented by Nicolas's classic notes and modern commentaries, the publication becomes the most important source for understanding the European historical and philosophical process of the last three centuries.