The edition of selected works by the remarkable writer Vladimir Sharov would be incomplete without the collection of essays “The Temptation of Revolution.” A historian by training, a specialist in Russian medieval studies (his PhD dissertation is devoted to the Time of Troubles in Russia in the early 17th century), Vladimir Sharov remains faithful—both in his fictional texts and in his journalism and scholarship—to several main storylines that matter most to him. The most important of them is the genesis of supreme power in Russia: the emergence of a vertical structure of authority, its relationship with the people, and the role of power in shaping Russia’s religious mindset—these are the questions the author brilliantly addresses on the pages of his historical essays. Vladimir Sharov