Sergej Sawjalow published his first poems in the 1980s in Leningrad's samizdat. His work is characterized by ancient and Russian poetry, the search for his Finno-Ugric identity, the processing of Soviet reality, and social responsibility. The works included in this volume testify to the tragedy of the Great Terror, the famine during the Siege of Leningrad, the cruelty of wars, and the assimilation of pre-Slavic peoples. He addresses the loss of linguistic and cultural identity as well as the mythical self-awareness due to the global dominance of the prevailing languages and major cultures. Sawjalow's texts employ techniques from ancient rhetoric, medieval literature, and avant-garde poetics. The fragmentation and interpolation of quotes create a chord, a interplay of epochs. The voices of earlier eras resonate as echoes of past catastrophes and serve as a warning: history continually produces new victims. Thus, Sawjalow sees his task as a poet to give a voice to the victims of history.