The collection was dedicated to Vera Pavlovna, Rozhdestvensky’s mother. Before the Great Patriotic War, she worked as a director of a rural elementary school and at the same time studied at a medical institute. She was a field surgeon during the war. In 1945, Vera Pavlovna married a fellow soldier Ivan Ivanovich Rozhdestvensky, who gave her son Robert his patronym and surname, and then raised him as his own.

The poet considered this book to be an expression of gratitude to his parents. They both were very strong-spirited and faced a lot of challenges. During the war, Vera Pavlovna took part in the Battle of Moscow, the Kursk Offensive Operation, and the military campaign “Bagration”. Throughout her life, she gave speeches at schools and universities about the events that she had experienced. Robert saw his parents as an example of dutiful, honorable and responsible people.

The collection has a symbolic name “Son of Vera” (the name “Vera” and the word “faith” are homonyms in the Russian language), which coincides with the title of the leading poem dedicated to the mother:

Gradually, another semantic layer is introduced in this work. The poet is reflecting on the core, with which he grew up:

Rozhdestvensky’s parents belonged to a generation of people for whom the struggle for peace was not an empty sound. The poet also inherently felt himself like a son of faith in what his parents defended. He believed that every single person should remember that everyone is responsible for the prosperity of the world. This idea ties the entire collection together. Thus, the poet saw his mother’s name, Vera, as a symbol.

The book from the museum collection contains a note from Robert Rozhdestvensky to his aunt Neta — Anna Pavlovna Bryleva, the elder sister of Vera Pavlovna, with whom he lived after the death of his grandmother. His mother was able to take Robert home only after the end of the Great Patriotic War.