The present article tackles the artistic method used by Solzhenitsyn in his work ‘The Red Wheel’. The starting point for consideration is the writer’s statement that this work of art is not an ordinary historical novel and it realizes totally exceptional artistic goals. The author of the article suggests analysing some of Solzhenitsyn’s theoretical explanations, which might have affected his working out of specific bases of depicting the world in ‘The Red Wheel’. The research of those explanations makes it possible to figure out certain parallels between the concept of artistic perception of Solzhenitsyn’s world and classical reflections on the subject of tasks of literature and the role of a writer. An exceptional role in this system of artistic values is played by the literary truth, understood as an original historical testimony, and the writer, who assumes the role of a historian.