His citizenship was rescinded by Leonid Brezhnev, but was restored under Gorbachev. As the Soviet Union became the Russian Federation, he went from national outcast to literary hero, winning the State Prize for his 2000 novel "Monumental Propaganda," about a communist fanatic who rescues a statue of Stalin from demolition by moving it into her apartment. However, official support once again declined as he became an outspoken critic of the Putin regime.