Prominent Ukrainian novelist Pavlo Zahrebelny, laureate of the USSR State Prize and the T. H. Shevchenko State Prize of the Ukrainian SSR.
At the center of the novel is the drama-filled struggle of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky (1090–1157) against churchmen, the boyars, and their protégé, the cruel and treacherous Kyivan prince Iziaslav Mstyslavych, for the unification of the Rus lands. It is shown that Yuri Dolgoruky, known as the founder of Moscow, was one of the exponents of the people’s striving for the unity of our land.