In 1971, the couple of American Slavists Karl and Ellendea Proffer founded the Ardis publishing house. Joseph Brodsky later compared their work with the coup that Gutenberg once made. Russian culture owes a lot to the modest Proffer publishing house: the restoration of the interrupted connection with the Silver Age, and the salvation from oblivion of the silenced literature of the 1920-1930s, and the publication of topical writers banned in the USSR. In fact, "Ardis" - as opposed to the Soviet literary canon - created a different history of Russian literature of the twentieth century, the traditions of which we still follow. So detailed, on the basis of rare archival documents and numerous interviews, the history of a unique publishing project is told for the first time.