The audiobook includes only reliable sources, not retellings based on rumors and speculation.
The aim of the work is to contribute to a complete clarification of the truth about the bloody events and the coup of 1801 (the murder of Emperor Paul I). The book includes the most reliable and important testimonies of eyewitnesses of those events—both direct participants in the coup and people who were closely connected with the Emperor, his family, the court, and personally knew all the figures of that time. According to this selection of documents, the testimonies of the main leaders and executors of the conspiracy—Count Pahlen and Bennigsen—are given first. Then the notes of Sablukov and Kotzebue are included, repeating and complementing each other, as well as excerpts from the memoirs of Princess Liven and Baron Geyking, the description of the March events by Chartorysky, and a report by Fonvizin compiled on the basis of testimonies of the participants in the conspiracy and contemporaries of those events.