Letoischislenie ot Ioanna - Ivanov Aleksei Viktorovich

"We need to explain that the reader did not get confused: first there was the author's script for the film about the conflict of Ivan the Terrible and Metropolitan Philip, then it turned into a director's script by Pavel Semyonovich Lungin, then there was the film "King" which represented Russia at the festival in Cannes. And then there was the novel "The Calendar of John", written according to the author's script. And the novel is in many ways at odds with the film.
This is not a historical narrative, although almost all of its characters are real historical figures, and the basis is an eschatological concept of the oprichnina, developed by Dr. Andrei Yurganov. It's a mystery novel. In it over the Kremlin appear Riders of the Apocalypse, and the queen turns into a biblical locust, in it Jesus buries Russian warriors, chopped under Polotsky, and Grozny feasts with warlocks, sorcerers and dead. The novel is not a chronicle of the atrocities of the "crobes" but a parable about the curse of Russian power.
Ivan the Terrible is waiting for the end of the world. In the pride of self-rule, he imagines himself the savior of his people, Christ of the Second Coming. And he establishes the Order of the Protection of Faith. If the people believe in the king as a god, the king will become a miracle worker. With his hand, he will plunge all enemies to dust and cover the earth with fat threads. You just have to make people believe in the king. To force by force is the terror of the oprichnina. But the Nightingale Abbot Philip, a man simple and clear, can not serve the king as a god. And then the eyes are locked in the eyes, and against the wave of the axe the cross rises."
Alexei Ivanov