The famous work of the great Russian historian Sergey Mikhailovich Solovyov is the foremost achievement of Russian historical scholarship of the 19th century. S.M. Solovyov—the “first among equals”—was among a galaxy of brilliant Russian historians, which includes N. Karamzin, V. Klyuchevsky, N. Kostomarov, A. Presnyakov, T. Granovsky, S. Platonov, and many others.
Volume Twelve of this extensive 29-volume work is devoted to the final period of the reign of Aleksey Mikhailovich (1645–1676).