The essay contains a brief overview of Russian history—from the 17th century (the Time of Troubles) to the 1990s—which the author characterizes as “a deaf fall and a fallen state of the Russian people” and as the “Great Russian Catastrophe.” According to the author’s own words, this brief analysis of the last four centuries of Russian history, especially its “missteps,” is made in order to understand the root causes and origins of the present “fallen state”:
Consciously not offering any specific practical steps for getting out of the situation created (and considering himself not entitled to suggest them before returning to his homeland), Solzhenitsyn nevertheless puts forward, as a national idea and the main component of the “Russian question” at the end of the 20th century, the idea of “Preserving the Nation.”
Many of the ideas expressed in this work found further continuation and development in the essay “Russia in Collapse,” published four years later.