The Emperor's Grandson

The novella was published in the magazine-novel 21st Century in 2000, then was published as the second part of the novel The Jesuit Cross of Peter the Great (issued in 2006 in the Slandered Rus series,
At the end of the 17th century, Russia was writhing in the birth pangs of a social revolution. Breaking and distorting Orthodox Muscovite life, the bourgeois-serf Russian Empire was being born. Many victims were laid on the altar of its greatness — from the streltsy to the tsar’s own son. The destruction of Muscovite Rus was invisibly conducted by foreign emissaries — above all the Jesuits. They managed to penetrate to the very top and bring Tsar Peter under their influence. For the sake of victory in the struggle for power, he had to enter into an alliance with the Jesuits and bear this heavy cross on his conscience all his life. About the undercurrents and secrets of Russian politics of the late 17th — early 18th centuries is Lev Anisov’s new book The Jesuit Cross of Peter the Great.