Daniil Andreev wrote "The Rose of the World" in prison and in the camps, without books, hiding the manuscript from his jailers. It is a visionary treatise on the spiritual history of mankind, on "worlds of retribution" and "worlds of enlightenment," and on Russia's destiny as a special spiritual mission.
He was born in Berlin in 1906. His father was Leonid Andreev, the celebrated writer. His mother died in childbirth, and his father soon gave the boy up to another family; he grew up in Moscow with an aunt.
He wrote poetry and prose. In 1947 he was arrested on a denunciation and sentenced to twenty-five years for "anti-Soviet agitation." In Butyrka Prison, by his own account, the visions began: he "traveled" through other worlds. He came out in 1957 gravely ill. Three years before his death he finished "The Rose of the World."
It was published only in 1991. It is not systematic theology but mythology — a multilevel universe in which Christ, Russia, Lucifer, and the "Messengers" all have their place. Some see revelation in it; others, poetic fantasy. He died in 1959.