About the book: 1957 / The surname Pronin with the addition of the rank - major - among the Soviet reader, firmly occupies a place among the characters who have stepped beyond the boundaries of the literary works that gave birth to them. This name, or rather surname (not everyone who has read works about him will remember the name and patronymic of the famous major), has a number of associations associated with it, just as the deductive method is firmly associated with Sherlock Holmes, and, say, orchids with Nero Wolfe. At the same time, the volume of the “official pronian” is relatively small - several first-person stories, stories about Major Pronin, a story and two novels. The publishers of the book, published in the “Military Adventures” series, designated its genre as a story, although each of the stories included in it represents, in fact, a completed work. The exception is the story “The Blue Angel” included in the collection, all chapters of which are connected by a single plot, and not just by the names of the heroes and the “chief spy”, who periodically eludes the major’s hands. Nevertheless, as befits a classic Soviet (of course, not only Soviet) detective story, evil, in the form of foreign agents trying to disrupt the restoration of coal mines or create a chicken epidemic, is eventually punished, and Major Pronin wins another victory. It was this ability to outplay the enemy after a long series of incomplete victories or even failures that may have laid the foundation for the so-called unofficial or popular “proniana” (our term). It is represented by a huge number of anecdotes and folklore stories, which reflect the most typical features of Major Pronin as a literary character: a “spy” plot, absurd, often ridiculous situations in which the hero finds himself and from which it would seem impossible to find a way out, a brilliant victory over the enemy. Enough to say that even in the children's (although Soviet children's films were not always only children's films) Alexander Row's fairy tale film "Fire, Water and... Copper Pipes", released in 1967, for the image of a hero familiar to everyone in the Soviet Union - for both adults and children, it was Major Pronin who was used. Moreover, in the short fragment where he is discussed - reading a book to an underwater king, languishing with boredom - one of Pronin’s key features is shown - the ability to emerge unharmed from the most critical situations: - The robbers captured Major Pronin, brought him to the cave, “tied his arms and legs and they put a barrel of gunpowder on top... The chieftain of the gang shoots at Major Pronin... Misfire!” This ability is shown even more grotesquely in folklore parody stories, which exist in many versions, but, unfortunately, have not yet been systematized by anyone. Naturally, such a hero, as well as the folklore that accompanied him, could only appear in certain historical conditions - during the period of socialism. It is no coincidence that the author himself returns to the image of Major Pronin when “the country moved to peaceful construction, and people began to find each other again.” An attempt to use this image during the crisis of the late 80s - early 90s. 20th century (for example, in cartoons dedicated to Major Pronin) cannot, in our opinion, be considered successful. Reissues of works about Major Pronin undertaken in the 2000s, as well as e-books created on their basis, contain a number of textual digressions from previously published books, therefore, we believe that the modern reader will be interested in familiarizing himself with the text of 1957. The pre-reform spelling has been preserved.