Abstract: The article examines the main cultural and philosophical idea of the work as a phenomenon that translates in a concentrated form the main line of thought of the writer, as well as the philosophical and cultural essence that the writer laid down and implemented in the corresponding work. The subject of the study is the epic of A.I. Solzhenitsyn "The Red Wheel", the purpose of the study is to construct the main cultural philosophical idea of the work in question. The author focuses on the theoretical and applied significance of the search for cultural and philosophical ideas embedded in "iconic" literary and artistic works. This kind of search not only contributes to the enrichment of the "knowledge" potential of the theory and history of culture, but also can become the basis for the formation of state cultural policy, for example, in the field of education, patriotic education, interethnic communication. At the same time, the search for cultural and philosophical ideas should be based on modern methodological approaches and take into account the context of current socio-cultural realities. The research used general scientific methods (analysis and synthesis, generalization, induction and deduction, logical and historical approaches), as well as methods traditionally used in cultural philosophical research: cultural analysis and the method of cultural philosophical tradition. In the article, the author states that the ten–volume epic "The Red Wheel" is the main literary work of A. I. Solzhenitsyn, which accumulated the rest of his works to an appropriate extent and is dedicated to the Russian revolution and the fate of Russia in a difficult period of its history. In this work, the writer addressed the "eternal" social problems through the prism of history, culture and philosophy.