The collection, prepared based on the materials of the 2018 international conference, is devoted to the categories of will and coercion, fundamental for Slavic and Russian cultures. Considered on a heterogeneous material of language, history, literature and fine art, these categories, posing eternal questions of freedom and its limits, are revealed in all their antinomicity, reflecting the turbulent events of the cultural and intellectual life of the Slavs in the 17th? 20th centuries: gaining national identity, overcoming the traumatic experience of violence, searching for new ways in art. Articles by leading Russian and foreign scientists of various disciplines are presented.