History Beneath the Skin

The Janissary of the Republic

«Liberty is a choice one pays for alone.»

The Janissary of the Republic continues the story of one man whose fate unfolds against the backdrop of a new world being born.

Having survived years in the service of another’s will, Yani moves beyond the systems to which he once belonged. At the turn of an age—amid diplomatic intrigue, rival powers, and the formation of new states—he is drawn into events that will shape the destiny of nations. His journey is no longer a search for what was lost, but an attempt to understand what a person becomes when there is no one left to rely on but himself.

The author combines historical fidelity with imaginative invention, carrying the narrative from the Black Sea world to Europe and America. The reader enters an age in which old orders are collapsing and new ones are taking shape—an age when freedom becomes not merely a right, but a burden.

JANISSARY or the diary of the Metropolitan

«Raised by the enemy, he returned to protect his own people.»

Janissary is a novel in which the fate of a single family intertwines with the history of an entire people. Against the backdrop of the political storms of the 18th century, forced migrations, and the clash of empires, unfolds the dramatic story of young Yani, taken by force from his family and raised as a Janissary among a foreign faith and language. Years later, he returns to his homeland — now a grown warrior, hardened and dangerous. His path is a search for his lost family, his roots, and his true identity.

The author combines historical accuracy with artistic imagination, turning the chronicle of an era into a living narrative of love and loyalty, fear and hope, sacrifice and choice. Before the reader opens the world of Crimea and the Azov region — with its people, traditions, and tragic trials.

The Genealogy of Saint Ignatius of Mariupol

The book describes the genealogy of Saint Ignatius of Mariupol, the last Metropolitan of the Gotfeo-Kafai Diocese and the spiritual leader of the resettlement of Christians from the Crimean Khanate to the Russian Empire in 1778. The genealogy begins with the Fourth Crusade in the 13th century and is traced to the present day. Along with generational genealogies, the book presents genealogical trees of the Byzantine branch of the Venetian feudal Gozzadini family and the Russian noble Gozadinov family. The appendix contains texts of archival documents that allow us to understand what Metropolitan Ignatius and his descendants were like.