This is an automatically translated description

Scholarly authors O. Yarmysh and B. Bernadsky highlight the history of intelligence services through the career biographies of their most prominent representatives - "knights of the cloak and dagger", as their contemporaries ironically called them. The "three pillars" of the intelligence services (intelligence, counterintelligence and political investigation), as well as other security institutions, have existed as long as the state itself. The struggle for power, attempts to retain it, and the constant threat of coups and uprisings forced rulers to pay special attention to the state security service, along with the army.

The authors offer a look at Ukrainian history through the prism of the history of special services, their origins and development from ancient times to the early twentieth century. The book is based on scientific literature on the topic, published memoirs, letters, periodicals, and archival materials.