Aleksei Petrovich Yermolov is one of the largest and most mysterious figures of the Russian general staff of all times. He raised himself on heroic biographies of Plutarch, European knightly poetry, and dreams of the laurels of Alexander the Great and Caesar. Among his fellow officers he stood out for his “boundless ambition.” From youth he had known not only military glory under Suvorov, but also the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress and exile. He stubbornly pressed on toward high goals without which life seemed meaningless to him.
Having completed the Napoleonic Wars as a hero of legend, sent to subdue the untamable Caucasus, Yermolov dreamed of breaking through into Asia’s expanses—defeating Persia and reaching India. European education, powerful charisma, touching care for subordinates—these combined in him with rational cruelty and biting arrogance. People worshiped him and hated him. “A Sphinx of the newest times,” called him A. S. Griboedov, who knew him closely.
This book offered to the reader is an attempt to solve the “Sphinx riddle.”