Portrait from the Russian Museum

“... For me, the author, each miniature is the same historical novel—only compressed into the smallest number of pages. Writing miniatures is a tiring process: it takes a lot of time and considerable painstaking labor. For example, I wrote a miniature about the artist Ivan Myasoyedov in 15 typewritten pages for 15 long years—literally gathering the material grain by grain about this strange man, who was mentioned in our press only occasionally. Having brought my miniatures together under one cover, I wouldn’t want to present to the reader only the heroics of our past, because not everyone in life is a hero; the picture of past life would be one-sided and incomplete if I didn’t also reflect people who lived not for feats of valor, but… simply lived. A good wife and mother—aren’t they worthy for her name to be preserved in our memory? Finally, are there really not many in our history of obvious villains, scoundrels, or petty thieves who took bribes? These negative characters also have the right for their names to be preserved in the grand Pantheon of our history… I’m a happy person, because I lived not only my own life—the real one—but also the destinies of many heroes of the past… ” Valentin Pikul