Abstract: The monograph explores the old Russian texts of the first third of the 17th century, dedicated to the events of the Time of Troubles, as a macrocycle unique in the history of Old Russian literature, which recorded the moment of the beginning of the transformation of genre forms traditional for medieval literature and methods of depicting historical events and persons. For the first time in Russian medieval studies, an attempt is made to comprehensively review the poetics of the corpus of journalistic and historical works of contemporaries about the Time of Troubles. On the basis of the analysis of macro- and micro-poetic means of image covered in the tradition and new methods of narration in the little-studied and otherwise studied texts, the question is raised of the origin of a new type of historical narrative in the first third of the 17th century Russian literature. The book is intended for medieval scholars, teachers, students and all interested in the Russian medieval literature.