ABSTRACT
Solzhenitsyn's portrait of Stalin is judged entirely on the grounds of historical accuracy. From the literary point of view, however, these controversial points can be treated as myths which add psychological and philosophical depth to Solzhenitsyn's character study. The clearest expression of Solzhenitsyn's religious conception is in his description of Stalin's conduct during the war. Solzhenitsyn's disapproval of the official Orthodox Church for its accommodation with the Soviet state, which first received clear expression in his Lenten Letter to Patriarch Pimen (1972), adds a new significance to the author's ironic treatment of Stalin's relationship with the Patriarch, who praises him as 'the Leader Elect of God'. In the Stalin chapters of Circle-96 Solzhenitsyn intensifies the oblique symbolic parallels with ideas and imagery associated with Dante and Dostoevsky which existed in the earlier version of the novel. Solzhenitsyn constantly stresses the emptiness and joylessness of Stalin's old age; even food and women have ceased to give him pleasure any more.
