ABSTRACT

This conclusion presents some closing thought on the concepts discussed in the previous chapters of this book. Few historical figures have been the subject of as many biographies and literary portrayals as Joseph Stalin, and none has given rise to more varied and conflicting interpretations. The depiction of Stalin has become an established tradition in modern Russian literature, but writers living in the USSR have been severely restricted in their treatment of his character at any given time. The most ambitious portrait of Stalin by a Russian writer which has not yet achieved publication in the USSR, that by Solzhenitsyn in the revised version of The First Circle, raises many interesting questions: not only specific points pertaining to Solzhenitsyn's own work and to Russian literature, but also wider literary, historical and philosophical issues. Many western critics would argue that the didacticism obtrudes in Circle-96, because they find Solzhenitsyn's religious, anti-socialist ideas objectionable.