Why it is difficult to know truth about historical events Many people believe that everything they see in historical films is true. Whereas it’s important to learn more about history, it is also necessary to remember that facts might be misrepresented because of little evidence and exaggeration in works of fiction used to make them more exciting. By evidence we usually mean documents such as laws and various biographies. While official documents are a truthful source of knowledge, biographies can be misleading as authors might have not known all details or they might have created a specific image which depended on their attitude to those historical celebrities. Another problem is that a lot of records were lost because of wars, revolutions and fires, and some of them were fabricated on purpose. Furthermore, even available true documents of historical events often stay unknown to people. Real history is often substituted by thrilling stories in popular films and books. For example, the Russian Tsar Ivan IV is claimed to have been unbelievably cruel. This image is supported in the novel “Prince Serebrenni” by Alexey Tolstoy and multitudinous films and even pictures. But if we look at him in the historical context, we’ll see that his European and Asian neighbors were much more violent, for instance at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre more people were killed than during Ivan’s IV whole life. In my view, perception of historical events is influenced by popular culture most of all. That means, people should watch pseudo-historical films critically, as well as check scientific articles and compare different points of view to get a clearer understanding of historical events.