The Rose of the World Book

The book was written during the darkest years of the horrifying Stalin regime that was marked by parents telling on their children, friends telling on their friends,sacrificed human blood steaming down the altar of the almighty statehood and all-embracing fear paralizing the minds of millions of people.
Daniil Andreev was sentenced, if I rememeber right, to 15 years of maximum security prison for his literary works, because they were so humane, so anti-government, so freedom-seeking that it couldn't have been otherwise. And it's really a miracle that the Rose of the World survived until today. Actually, it did not survive, it was destroyed and the author,while being very sick, restored it completely out of memory very shortly before his death, after he was released from prison. His wife later said that "it seemed as if while he was working to restore the book, some angel was holding him in his hands. But right after Daniil finished, the angel let go of him, and he started getting weaker each day".
The most interesting idea that I found in this book:
When, in creating something, you seek glory for yourself, this makes you smaller, but if you do it for the sake of other people, it brings out the divine in your human nature and elevates you.