Mirror for a Hero. Review[Зеркало Для Героя. Рецензия]

It is quite a difficult task to take on writing a book about your own faculty, your groupmates, friends and the distant past. But if you also make the life study of one individual, your friend for more than half a century (1969-2022), part of the narrative, the monograph requirements bar is pulling away. And add to this an essay on the Soviet era of the "big time" 1960s-1980s, as well as a subjective and therefore vivid, metaphorical characterization of the beginning of the post-Soviet era - the early 1990s - in the context of both provincial and national history in such fields as science, culture, politics, human relations - and the road chosen by the author turns into the path of an experienced climber. And what if the climber deliberately chooses not the trodden path, but a steep hillside? After all, Let’s face it, that it is difficult to find in commonplace sense a more controversial character of modern history than the agonist of the book, Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis (GB - hereinafter, in monograph and further in the text). In this case writing the book turns into reconnaissance in force, where the chances of unconditional success are highly unlikely. V.V. Skorobogatsky’s (hereinafter referred to as VVS) book often feature the lines from V. Vysotsky’s songs. Let me also remind of this one: "but we choose a difficult way - dangerous as a military path."