The appearance of Pushkin's The history of Pugachev was greeted with suspicion and hostility by Nicholas I, who restricted Pushkin's access to the records of the Pugachev Rebellion and who insisted on censoring the book before publication. The Tsar demanded that Pushkin change the title from The History of Pugachev to The History of the Pugachev Rebellion since a rebel could not have a history . The Tsar was not the only person to find fault with the history - liberals of the time attacked Pushkin for his lack of social bias, and the conservatives disliked his indictment of the foreign-born generals who conducted the campaign against Pugachev with an eye only on the advancement of their own careers. The History of Pugachev represents a major departure for Pushkin. It is story written by a poet, yet Pushkin's fieldwork and handling of archival materials is admired by historians today.