Anna Danilovich

The authors, like Isaac Babel, rejected the depiction of battles, the simplification, and varnishing of reality, instead conveying the dramatic tension of the post-revolutionary years: the explosion of awakened human energy and the tragic collisions of destinies.

Bolshevik Mravin, under the name of engineer Pyotr Ivanovich Lednev, risking his life, takes V.I. Lenin’s “Letter to the American Workers” to America. With the help of John Reed, he publishes it in one of the newspapers.

Leonato, governor of sunny Messina in Sicily, warmly welcomes Don Pedro, Prince of Aragon, to his home. Don Pedro has arrived in the city accompanied by his retinue after the victorious conclusion of the war. The retinue includes the prince's friends, young officers: Claudio from Florence and Signor Benedick from Padua. The romantic Claudio immediately falls in love with the beautiful Hero, Leonato's daughter, and the prince offers to help the lover. At night, at a masquerade ball, he reveals Claudio's feelings to the girl on his behalf and agrees with her father on the wedding...