In the hoary antiquity of Belarusian history, Vladimir Karatkevich unearthed and retold to his contemporaries dramatic, piercingly touching stories of love, nobility, and an ineradicable love of life. The purple nobleman Roman Rakutovich leads a peasant rebellion to win freedom for his humiliated compatriots and for his beloved, a serf peasant, Irina ('The Gray Legend'). The hero of 'The Boat of Despair,' Gervasy Vylivakha, spends his time at merry games and in amorous adventures. Fantasy, mysticism, fear, gallows humor—this work contains everything that attracts the literary baroque.

Book in Belarusian