The Heart of Parma

The 15th century since the birth of Christ—almost seven thousand years since the Creation of the world… The Moscow principality, strengthening itself, begins to eye the riches of its neighbors—near and far. Rus slowly pushes toward the Urals. And in the Urals there aren’t “wild peoples”—in the Urals there are forest pagan principalities, an ancient taiga world, wondrous and terrifying to outsiders. Here they don’t believe in the salvation of a righteous soul; here they pray to the harsh gods of fate. Will the Orthodox cross conquer the unclean spirits of the endless pine wilderness—the coniferous ocean of eternal taiga? Will the alien Jesus Christ tame this dim universe? Will the people here become Russian? And will the Russians become the ones here? Alexey Ivanov’s novel "The Heart of the Parma" is about how people and nations, finding their homeland, also find their destiny.