The paradox is that, in the Soviet era, his art was used, briefly, as a force for liberation, because Nikita Khrushchev allowed the publication of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in order to buttress his anti-Stalin thaw. In today’s supposedly free and democratic Russia, however, Solzhenitsyn is idealized for his nationalism and Orthodox messianism, his contempt for the West’s supposed decadence, all messages that Putin’s regime proclaims loudly and daily.