About the book: 1929 / N. Berberova's first novel - "The Last and the First" - published in the form of fragments, first in "Modern Notes" (1929 ), and then entirely in the Parisian publishing house of Y. Povolotsky - was actually the first Russian novel dedicated to the life of ordinary Russians in France. Despite some imitation, almost always inherent in the first works of any novice author, the novel evoked many responses and sympathetic reviews. But it was one more thing in this novel. Berberova was almost the first to feel the pressure that the Bolshevik authorities began to exert on immigrants from Russia back in the years of the NEP. The novel shows the activities of an entire organization to “catch” and return lost people to the USSR. It is this “hand of Moscow” that the heroes of the novel are trying to resist..