The collection "Widow's Clothes" is another book of artistic accompaniment to the third volume of "The History of the Russian State" by Boris Akunin - "From Ivan III to Boris Godunov". It consists of two stories - the same name with the collection, and a short story "The Sign of Cain". "The Widow's Board" is a story about the beginning of the unification of the lands around Moscow. Chronologically, these are the days on the eve of the short Moscow-Novgorod war. The author introduces us to the Novgorod Republic through the life and fate of three difficult and outstanding women Marfa Boretskaya (the very famous Martha the Posadnitsa), Nastasya Grigorieva and Efimiya Gorshenina. Bright expressive personalities. A remarkable mind, capable of both creative goodness and merciless evil and destruction. Backstage intrigue and struggle. Boris Akunin clearly succeeded in this story. Paraphrasing the famous expression of the same remarkable mind of the twentieth century, we can safely say that "this thing is stronger than the "Game of Thrones" will be ... The second part of the collection is the story "The Sign of Cain". The reader will spend only one day in the Moscow kingdom, looking at the world through the eyes of Ivan IV the Terrible himself. With all his personal internal struggle between fear and hatred, still childish complexes and insults, but also with the sovereign's view of the country and the people. Akunin's bold experiment will certainly be of interest to readers.
