The novel captures the most important events of Russian history in the second half of the eighteenth century. At the center is the figure of the favorite of Empress Catherine II Alexeyevna—an outstanding statesman and commander, Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin. Among the characters are Empress Elizabeth Petrovna and Count Alexei Razumovsky, the great Russian scholar Mikhail Lomonosov and Count Ivan Shuvalov, the founder of the Russian national theater Fyodor Volkov and Count Alexander Stroganov, the famous Russian admirals Grigory Spiridov and Samuel Greig, Polish King Stanisław Augustus Poniatowski and the rebel Yemelyan Pugachev…